Slow Burn (2000)

Nice effects though.

Let's be realistic.

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Boring

Since I don't recognize anyone in this film, I assume that it is a small time or low budget or some other small enterprise film with a major distributor. For such an unassuming movie, it has a lot of merits. The cinematography is really nice. The acting never falls behind the plot or the script which is a little threadbare. And the story and the characters have a rather original hard boiled reality to them.After renting movie after movie based on heavy promotion only to find myself scrambling for the fast forward, it was a pleasant change to just sit back and see a nicely told story.To see how the heavies do the same thing better see Dafoe and Sam Neil in "Victory"

The plot is not what brings your focus to bear with this film - it is the absolutely horrible acting performances of the players. James Spader's agent should spend significant resources to pass the rumour that he didn't have a part in this film (he's practically unrecognizable anyway); Minnie Driver's contribution is in the body part only league; and Josh Brolin should not give up his day job. In particular, the language accents taken on by Driver & Brolin are forced, stereotypical, and false. In fact, for me, the disastrous lack of some kind of sanity in the plotline coupled with loser performances of Driver and Brolin made the desert scenes the most interesting part of the film. Spader is a fine actor who just doesn't need this kind of drivel on his record. Scale of 0-10: a 2 for Spader and the desert scenes.

...how many reviewers are unfamiliar with GREED, an engrossing and fascinating film that many critics list in their all-time top ten. This film is a blatant tribute to that film and the book it's based on. Among the many clues are the setting, the characters' names (Marcus, Trina, McTeague, Frank Norris (!!)), the theme, and probably many more things that I've missed. To all who are reading this, please immediately make plans to see GREED by Erich Von Stroheim, the Man You Love to Hate, and the butler from SUNSET BOULEVARD! To be a serious movie-watcher and not to have seen it, is like being interested in drama and having never read Shakespeare.

As a Minnie Driver fan, I couldn't believe the tawdry disaster unfolded in the telling of "Slow Burn." Produced in part by Two Drivers (Minnie and her sister, Kate), it gives the impression of two intelligent women based on self-destruction. For three generations, Minnie's forebears have been consumed with the search for her grandmother's remains, and with it, the diamonds with which she disappeared into the desert so many years ago. It has consumed all of Trina's (Driver's) life, from infancy into young womanhood. Now, only Trina and her older mentor (and Mom's former lover) are left. Trina has promised that this will be her final year of searching. After this season, she'll throw in the towel. Two bumbling escaped convicts, one a bit dim (but basically of good heart) - the other given to apparant glimpses of insight between fits of pique, literally stagger upon what three generations of desert veterans have been unable to find. One of the cons is played by James Spader, and I swear I didn't recognize him. (As Martha Stuart might say [as far as a career move is concerned], "This is a good thing." His agent would agree. In short, there are disabled trucks with runaway tendencies. Said trucks seem to appear meaningfully late in the movie, almost cluttering the set ... despite their mechanical devastations. With trucks like these, "OK! I'll take the kids!" There's a sterility in interpersonal relationships that makes evem Driver's character appear to be a cardboard cut out. Is this love in bloom, or heatstroke. There's even a touch of 'Marathon Man" here, for those with expensive "tastes." The premise should have been developed into a taut thriller. However, neither the viewer seeking justice nor the sophisticate in search of irony comes away satisfied. There's a lovely and colorful little bird to win your heart; but this is not the bird director Chrisyian Ford delivers to paying audiences. "Is it safe?" to see "Slow Burn?" Only if it's free and you're desperate for seeing Minnie Driver on the big screen.