Choke (2008)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Dreadfully Boring

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.

maybe i was expecting to much. although, i doubt it. i was worrying that the book wouldn't make a very good film, but knowing fight club, i still had high hopes.then when the movie finally came out, it left me immensely disappointed. in only ~90 minutes they tried to cover a book so complex and funny and it resulted in a mediocre dark comedy, that only people who didn't read the book will be able to enjoy.if you read the book, you will always be disappointed. it is nowhere near as entertaining and gripping. DON'T WATCH THIS! if you have not read the book, do it. and also DO NOT WATCH THIS! if you have not read the book and can't be bothered to, just step away from this altogether and wait for another of chuck's books to be made into a film instead. yet again: DO NOT WATCH THIS!

Many, many years ago, there was a television show called "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd". It was the first program I can recall being referred to as a "dramedy". I don't know who came up with that term, if it was a critic or a network suit of one of show's creators, but I believe it was meant to encapsulate "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd" not following the conventions or abiding by the demands of either comedy or drama. However, rather than symbolizing some new blend or fusion of genres, "dramedy" very quickly became synonymous with shows that simply aren't funny enough to be comedies or dramatic enough to be dramas. In that sense of the word, Choke is all "dramedy".Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) is a sex addict with a declining mother (Angelica Huston) in a psychiatric facility. When he's not trying to bang every woman who walks by, Victor fakes choking in restaurants. He lets someone save him and then asks them for money, relying on his savior's sense of responsibility, pity or self-aggrandizement to make them fork over the cash he needs to pay for his mother's care. Victor also works as a colonial re-enactor with his fellow sex addict Denny (Brad William Henke).The film jumps back and forth between Victor's miserable present and his childhood with his charismatically crazy mom, with the scenes of past and present being connected with all the subtlety of a cinder block dropped on your groin. Victor eventually falls into a relationship with Paige (Kelly Macdonald), a psychiatric doctor who claims she can help Victor's mom. That relationship renders Victor impotent, though he seems less bothered by that than by his delusional mother's refusal to tell him who his father is.The story goes through several other digressions, but eventually winds up with Victor having an epiphany. Though all of Choke is about how his mother's care gave Victor's grotesquely low self-esteem and that's the source of all his personal dysfunction, he apparently decides to stop being a sex addict and just be a person who likes to have sex with strangers in strange places. I don't get that distinction and this movie didn't do anything to clarify it.There is a decent amount of nudity here and scattered bits of comedy that pop up now and again, but Choke is never really funny. The script sets up a lot of theoretically humorous situations and personal characteristics. All it is, however, is set up. The punch line should come when someone does something funny in those situations or behaves in a funny way because of those characteristics and those punch lines are too few and too far between.On the other hand, the supposed drama in Choke fails in the opposite direction. Every emotional and intellectual conflict in the story is spelled out so plainly and unavoidably, there might just as well have been sub-titles running along the bottom of the screen explaining to the viewer what he or she is seeing and how they should respond to it. I can't speak for everyone, but it's impossible for me to get invested into a story when it feels like someone is slapping me in the face every 5 minutes and saying "Do you get it, idiot?"There's no complaints about the acting, though Joel Grey is so effective at invoking the tragedy of sex addiction he only underscores how cavalierly the rest of Choke deals with the matter. Writer/director/actor Clark Gregg only does a decent job with the last third of that designation. He knows which direction the camera should be pointed but beyond that, he doesn't appear to have any grasp at all of his story or how he's telling it.This isn't a disastrous bit of cinema. If you're looking for something intentionally off beat, you might like it. I found myself wishing I had watched a marathon of Molly Dodd reruns instead.

Choke is the ultimate "tweeny" film – too cute to be truly edgy and too edgy to be merely cute. This leaves it in the uncomfortable middle ground of not having either a core die-hard audience or mainstream appeal.But I'm not here to market the thing, I only want to give my opinion. Well it's interesting at times but I didn't actually think it was really that deserving a film. That might be more a reason for its lack of box-office than their prudish attitude to sex, after all flash some celeb tit or show liberal amounts of nubile teenage skin and you've got a hit on your hands.Sam Rockwell plays Victor – a sex-addict whose life is consumed with fantasy, physical contact and basically release, though he is never satisfied and is in fact afraid of true intimacy. His best friend is Danny and he suffers from the same affliction, they both work in theme park portraying US pioneer times, constantly looking for targets and boldly seeking encounters – however brief.Therefore we are then subject to numerous cutaways and flashbacks showing various encounters in true Rob Schneider fashion – albeit with less "hilarious" disabilities and in a far better (though still average) film. If we believe these inserts (pardon the expression) Victor gets more tail than a rock star and flips over more chicks than Alfie in a standard week.Victor and Denny both lament their affliction yet are ruled by its power. There is in fact a group session available featuring several others sharing their predicament but the allure of the flesh seems stronger than the desire for a cure and they rarely attend.But that doesn't seem to be the main point of the movie, although to be honest I don't really know what is… Victor also regularly feigns near-death experiences – hence the title – and maximises on the newly faked formed bond by cadging off his carefully chosen benefactor on an ongoing basis to supplement his meagre income.Victor's Mother is in a nursing home in need of special care. As she raised Victor from infancy – he never knew who his real Dad was – he has an ever greater than normal bond with his Mum and visits her regularly (though again he seems to have tried it on – and often succeeded – with most nurses in the hospital). The problem is that the facility is not for Aged care but for mental health issues, and it seems his Mum has always had serious issues in the upstairs department.In fact when Victor visits his own Mother doesn't even recognise her son, so he adopts a variety of personas including lawyers and Victor's friends in attempts to get through to her to spark frank discussions about his childhood and past.On one such unsuccessful visit Victor is told by a woman named Paige that Mum is destined to move into another floor, one with more dedicated and intensive care – a bad sign – and he resists, though he does do his darndest to slide his Way into Paige's Doctor's outfit, his attempts rejected… initially.The remainder of the film deals with Victor's conflicting goals: he starts a torrid affair with Paige that quickly loses momentum when his "desire" is waylaid, while simultaneously striving to get through to his Mum and uncover more about his past.Rockwell finally lands a lead and does his best to maintain our er… interest in an increasingly convoluted plot. I continually thought of him as more likable (as a character not a love interest) guy than a conflicted man rent asunder by desperation and addiction. Angelica Huston plays Mum as a loving but manipulative, selfish and deceitful woman, and Kelly MacDonald is convincing as a woman that Victor… might like to have sex with??? The film suffers from trying to inject too many damn ideas into the fray, many of them are never actually seen through to any satisfying conclusion which creates an element of dissatisfaction. The main example of this is the Choking thing which supplies the film with little more than a title.One vice I understand, another unnecessary quirk is a tougher act to swallow… in fact one might say this film Chokes on it… just a little at least.This is a film that falls victim to its source material, while a novel might have hundreds of page with which to introduce and follow through with ideas, a movie has but 90 odd (in this case) minutes to do the same. A little more judicious exorcising of some extraneous elements might have helped here… Or they could have just bought in more nubile young teens and asked them to flash the jubblies, that works too.Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. A film that doesn't know what it wants to do or what it wants to say.

This film is based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, who also wrote the rather excellent Fight Club (1999). Combine that with a cast that includes Anjelica Huston and Sam Rockwell and I hope we're onto a winner! So it was with fingers crossed and very little knowledge of the plot, I sat down to watch.Victor Mancini is a sex addict; he goes to group sessions to help with his addiction but only ends up having sex with the woman he's supposed to be sponsoring. He works together with his best friend, Denny, at a Colonial America re-enactment park, the kind of place school kids go to learn about the early settlers. He also is a com-man, faking choking fits in restaurants in order to get money so he can support his mother, Ida, who has dementia and lives in a home. On one of his visits he meets a doctor, Paige Marshall, who thinks she knows a way to help Ida, but it's risky. I really don't want to give too much away, so I'll leave my short plot summary here.A pretty well made film with really good performances from both Sam Rockwell as Victor and Anjelica Huston as Ida J. Mancini. I must also give honourable mentions to Brad William Henke as Denny and Kelly Macdonald as Paige Marshall.A lot of the story is told in flashback, harking back to when Victor was a boy on the run with Ida. A really quirky film with all the odd twists you'd expect from the writer of Fight Club. Although it's far from prefect I enjoyed this one very much, and that's not just because of the nudity and sex scenes. Over all, not perfect, enjoyable with a few laughs: Recommended.My score: 6.8/10