Last night I watched a fun crime film courtesy of Netflix.
Who Is Cletis Tout? (2001) stars Christian Slater as a prison escapee who assumes the identity of a dead man - a
paparazzo who happens to have dirt on a mafioso. Believing his bumbling pair of hitmen killed the wrong man, the gangster hires a highly skilled assassin to set things right. That part is played against type by Tim Allen. The character is a movie fanatic who spouts quotes throughout the scenario. He easily gets the drop on his unsuspecting prey, and waits in a hotel for his fee to be transferred to his account. He realizes the guy may not be Tout and asks for a corroborating story, which leads to flashbacks. It is imaginative, light-hearted entertainment that rises above its plot holes, and features a stellar supporting cast: Richard Dreyfuss as the fellow escapee, a magician who committed a heist in which the jewels were never recovered; Portia deRossi as his daughter; the always welcome Billy Connolly as a corrupt coroner; and Rupaul as a bizarre neighbor. It was written and directed by Chris Ver Weil, who seems to have vanished from the grid. I'd recently read his only novel,
Starbucks Nations, published in 2008, which I didn't like despite its stellar prose and dialogue. I wonder if he was so bummed out by the commercial failures of these endeavors that he simply gave up. Made on a budget of $9 million, the flick returned only $252,706 worldwide according to Box Office Mojo. Although it appears to have attracted a following years after its release, given its 6.4 rating at IMDb, I doubt it came close to recovering the investment made on it. It runs only 92 minutes. Cinephiles would probably get a kick out of it. There is a great original line in it involving Slater's personal history, which fit beautifully, given the cinematic references, and which fans will definitely remember and should eat up. There is some violence but it is mild compared to much of that of modern cinema and even TV. I expected a final scene of one of the characters seated at a keyboard, working on an unfinished screenplay. That would have erased the plot holes. Give it another shot, Mr. Ver Weil. You are talented. Here's a pic of four of the stars:
Channel 14-1, a PBS affiliate on over the air antennas in NYC, continues to provide top notch Euro crime dramas. The latest I've come across is
The Godless, a grim though riveting anthology produced in the Netherlands. Of the four episodes I've seen, three involve a main character who goes over the edge and commits murder. The other focuses on a 16-year-old coke-head and dealer. Supposedly, they are based on actual events. I am always surprised at how gritty some of these shows are. There was no info on this one at IMDb, so I googled it. Sure enough, it's listed under its Dutch title. Users seem as impressed as I am, rating it 7.8. It shot about 30 episodes. I'm not sure if it's still in production. The ones I've seen run less than 50 minutes and there are no commercials.
The floating book shop was fast out of the gate on this glorious winter day, then hit a wall. My thanks to the young woman who bought a self help book, and to the gentleman who purchased a beautifully illustrated little prayer book; and to the guy who reminds me of Nikita Khrushchev, who found two crime novels in Russian to his liking; and to the woman who did a four-for-two swap of such fare; and to Ann, who insisted on paying for a thin recipe book I would have let her have for free.
My Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Vic-Fortezza/e/B002M4NLJE
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