The Basic Plot in Five Words or Less: Airline stewardess double-crosses everyone. Ha!
My Basic Ramblings: If you went to this movie expecting Reservoir Dogs II, you were disappointed. If you went expecting lots of those Kangol hats and Bridget Fonda in little bikini tops, you weren't. Mom, Dad, Erin, Chuck, Chris and I went to see this the day after Christmas.
Unfortunately now the 6th of January, so things're starting to get a little hazy in my reviewing (but I'm sure some of you would say, "But Whitney, you're always hazy!", at which point I would kick at your shins violently). That aside, let's discuss the film.
A sort of Grasping at Straws Brush with Fame here: Robert Forster grew up in Rochester, New York. Speaking of Mr. Forster, he made the movie. Maybe it's because I haven't seen him in anything else and can't equate him with other roles, but when I looked at him, all big up on that screen there, I didn't think "Gee, that's Samuel L. Jackson [with a really weird goatee]" or "Gee, that's Robert DeNiro [looking really crappy]", I thought "Gee, that's Max Cherry, the bail bondsman."
I kept expecting Michael Keaton, the ATF agent, to suddenly jump up on his desk and yell "I'M BATMAN!" Alas, he didn't.
As for the plot, it worked, based on Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch. (For some reason, I always get the names "Elmore Leonard" and "James Ellroy" confused in my head, which made for a lot of fun when I was trying to get L.A. Confidential out at the library.) The only hink in the plan ("hink" is going to be my new word of the day) is that I find it really hard to believe the ATF agents wouldn't find something weird in the fact that in the second transport of money, they would buy the fact that Jackie was only going to bring $50,000.00 and not the half mil. But I suppose it could work. I dunno.
The one part of the flick that fit the "it's funny 'cause it's true" idea was Max hearing that Delfonics song in Jackie's apartment, then going out, buying the tape, and playing that song constantly. It was such a thing to do, and he did it, and that was cool. (That last sentence probably wins the award for "Most Incoherent Sentence Ever Typed by Whitney Anne Valentine Fitzgerald Freemesser.")
There's a little of the time fragmentation that Quentin likes to use, in the dressing room/second dropoff sequence, that really messes with your mind ("Wait a second....Melanie just picked up the money, but in this next scene here she's just getting out of the VW bus...was it Melanie that picked up the money? We only saw her from mid-shin down, maybe it wasn't her...") until you realize that time's looping, which is kind of a mean trick to play 3/4 of the way through a film when you haven't done anything like it previously.
At the end, Erin and I kept chanting "C'mon, Max....go with her....put down the phone and go with her." He didn't, and that sucked, but I s'pose it'd be too soppily cutesy if he did. C'est la vie.
In the parking lot, after seeing the film, Chris couldn't find his car so I started tormenting him. "Loooooooooooooooooooooouis.........." I said. "Is it this row? Or is it the next row?" Luckily he didn't shoot me. [The checkerboard stripes on my car make it stand out so I don't have this problem.]