I Love You to Death (1990)

What a waste of my time!!!

Disappointment for a huge fan!

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Let me start to say that this little 'under the radar' black comedy flick, it's one of my all time favorites from the genre and a severly underrated film that deserved a much better praise and needs to be rediscovered as a comedy gold cult film nowadays.Lawrence Kasdan, who never disappointed (at least during the 80's, until the mid 90's) directed this quirky story based on actual facts about an italian womanizer, Joey Boca (Kline), the chauvinist owner of a Pizza Parlor, who repeatedly cheats on his devoted wife, Rosalie (Ullman), even if her loyal employer, Devo (Phoenix) and his eccentric mother, Nadja (Plowright) were trying to warn her against Joey's way of life. When Rosalie catches him cheating on her in a public library, she bows to revenge for years of infidelity and with the support of Mother Nadja, Devo and two doped (un)professional killers (Reeves & Hurt) they plan to eliminate him, but a sinful task like this, will not be easy to concretize...Kasdan was always a great director of actors, since his debut in "Body Heat" ('81) to "The Big Chill" ('83), "Silverado" ('85) or "The Accidental Tourist" ('88), his entire cast always gave superb performances way adequated to the given material and "I Love You to Death" is not an exception. Kevin Kline, one of the funniest actors that ever graced the screen, fresh from his truly deserved Oscar win for "A Fish Called Wanda" the year before and collaborating with the director for the 3rd time, is splendid and hilarious playing Joey Boca, a derivative performance of his Otto character from "Wanda", but equally effective and stealing every scene he's in.Tracey Ullman is impressive in her first co-leading role in a theatrical released picture, but veteran Dame Joan Plowright as her cranky Serbo-Croatian Mother Nadja, delivers a marvellous performance, her responses and facial expressions' are a riot to follow.River Phoenix is ok playing Devo, practically playing himself at that time. William Hurt (joining Kasdan for the 4th time) & Keanu Reeves as the two hippie druggies, play one of the most memorable screen duo in a comedy movie ever (Cheech & Chong next to them look like a pair of lucid fellas), it needs to be seen to be believed, even the always subpar, Keanu, delivers here probably one of his best performances, some may say that he's just playing a part of himself, but so as River, the main difference is that the River's role and performance are bland & merely passable and Keanu is extremely amusing.The movie also features an early appearance on-screen by Heather Graham and a cameo by Phoebe Cates (from the "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" & "Gremlins" fame), the real life wife of lead star, Kevin Kline, who shot the scene with her husband in a break of filming "Drop Dead Fred" ('91).The music score by James Horner is spot-on to the events on the screen and largely contribute to the burlesque feeling of the whole.In short, "I Love You to Death" is a skillfully directed farce from a delightfully immoral screenplay from John Kostmayer and a 'must-see' for fans of such movies as "A Fish Called Wanda" ('88); "Weekend at Bernie's" ('89); "Oscar" ('91) or "My Cousin Vinny" ('92). If you not find this movie funny, you surely needs to check your head.My rate is a 9.5, near the perfection of a 10 star movie !!

Knowing Lawrence Kasdan ("The Big Chill", "Grand Canyon", "Raiders of the Lost Ark") wrote and directed this, I knew it would be good, but was not prepared for how absolutely hysterical it is.Kline is at his accent-slinging (remember "A Fish Called Wanda"?) best as Joey Boca, the Tacoma "Pizza Man" who compulsively cheats on his overly trusting wife, Rosalie (Tracey Ullman). She would seem pathetic if not buoyed up by her opinionated and competent, "Eurasian" mother, Mama Nadja (Joan Plowright) and the funky young Devo (River Phoenix), who has a crush on Rosalie.SPOILERS!!! Even before the murder attempt, the gags abound, with Joey guilelessly schmoozing with the two cops who are just DYING to tell Rosalie about her husband's extracurricular activities.After Joey is seen with one of his dates by Rosalie, she swears to kill him, with Mama Nadja's full blessing, and offer to help. First, Nadja hires a friend's grandson to kill Joey, but the guy shows up in an Abraham Lincoln mask and a baseball bat, misses and runs away. Nadja then goes out and wires Joey's car to blow up, only to have Rosalie hop in it the next morning with Joey. Luckily, Nadja's bomb-making skills aren't 100%.Rosalie: "Why didn't you TELL me you were going to blow the car up?" Nadja: "I thought it would be nice surprise." Then there is the seemingly endless night in which Mama and Rosalie wait for their poison spaghetti sauce to take effect, in which Joey eats tons of it but keeps rallying, forcing them to play Monopoly and even waking up to wander around and offer snacks to his "guests", after the drug-addled Harlan (William Hurt), hired by Devo, shoots him. His spaced-out cousin Marlon (Keanu Reeves) is a bit over--or rather under--the top, but still quite funny, as he helps Harlan figure out were the heart is (to shoot Joey) by reciting a very botched Pledge of Allegiance ("With amber graves of liberty...and deliver us from Freedom. Amen").The film flags a bit after Joey ends up in the hospital, with his mother (Miriam Margolies) alternately hugging him and whacking his head. Victoria Jackson has a nice bit as the dizzy lover who asks Joey why he stays with his wife if he cheats.The ending could only come from real life (which it did) and as Joey says to Devo, "No more shooting' me in the head, okay?" he is still met with skepticism: "Why not? It seems to have helped." And Mama Nadja is not quite convinced of Joey's reform. "What if he cheats again?" Devo asks. "Then we shoot him again." she replies, half-joking.For the lighter side of infidelity and some great comic performances, not to mention memorable quotes (Nadja: Did you see what he looked like? Joey: Yeaah...he looked like Abraham Lincoln...comin' up to bat.), this film is a must-see.

I love this movie and its crazy to know that its a true story- a wacky but true story. I think the movie has a really different type of sense of humor but then again so do I. All of the characters are really funny in their own ways and it made me laugh to see them all interacting together. The father (Kevin Klein) is so clueless about everything. This movie takes some serious subjects and make them funny and something to joke about- not to mention its a true story. Also, Keanu Reeves who usually does serious movie roles like the matrix and sweet November is hilarious in this movie, he plays a total druggy and does a really good job at it. Anyways I have seen this movie tons of times and recommend that you watch it, maybe you'll like it maybe you wont.

I had actauly written a negative review of this one on imdb only a few days ago. By sheer coincidence I saw this movie again about 24 hours after I wrote the review(purely coincidental)I had seen this when it first came out and then seen part of it again and did not like it AT ALL. My main problem was that it seemed contrived, I mean actually the movie kind of made me bewildered, I didn't understand the humer in it.Well, I saw it again, the person I saw it with told me it was based on a true story, this was confirmed by imdb user comments. Knowing that, it changes my views on the movie. I honestly had no idea an incredible event like this ACTUALLY happened and knowing that can view the film differently and understand why so many loved it.I love you to death will never be my favoroite movie but knowing what I do now I can say it's an interesting one(I just wish I'd known the true facts when I saw this years ago).