The Caveman's Valentine (2001)

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

A Brilliant Conflict

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Romulus Ledbetter (Samuel L. Jakcson) has a problem: Evil Stuyvesant is sitting in his tower, shooting down y-rays, which he uses to control people. One day, valentines to be exact, Stuyvesant ditches a corpse in front of Ledbetter's home, but no-one believes him, when he tells them it was a murder. And he knows who did it. The thing is, Mr. Ledbetter is quite insane. And he lives in a cave in a park. So, the movie offers to the viewer two kind of mazes: the first one is, who did what? The second one is far more complex, constructed from the disillusioned mind of Romulus, who, despite the moth-seraphs in his head, tries to solve a murder, that doesn't look like it.Samuel L. Jackson is the pivot of this film. The world is shown from his perspective. He sometimes rants about Stuyvesant, but he doesn't rant and scream his part through the film. On the contrary he gives far more solid portrayal of a troubled mind, who drifts between the reality and the world he has created for himself.The visuals are pretty clever, especially when they portray the illusions of Romulus. The seraphs and the rays are nicely portrayed and woven into the stream of the movie. They never feel pretentious.Despite the flaws this film has in the story, it still manages to be intriguing film that offers some thrills and some laughs in a nice order and well done manner.

Wow… I don't care what people think about Samuel L. Jackson, that man is amazing. This film shows his versatility something fierce.This is a great film about a man named Romulus who most would consider homeless. But in the film, if you called him homeless he gets mad because he actually lives in a cave by a little park. He's a used-to-be musician who ends up going insane and can't finish school. He ends up finding a dead man, and is convinced that he knows who killed him. He spends most of the film trying to prove it while also battling the things inside his crazy head.The entire story is told amazingly unique. His character was very strange, and the way the director portrayed what Romulus was thinking was innovative, as well as straight forward. You need to see this film.

I picked this up in the video store not knowing what to expect and was I pleasantly surprised. This film is a real work of art and works on many levels. First, the direction is magnificent. Lemmons works magic blending reality with flashbacks, imaginings and fantasies. Weaving all these together is a true feat. This is a film one could watch without the sound just to appreciate the images.Second, the arts that are portrayed are excellent, from the dancing to the music to the photography. Lemmons has a fantastic arts sense.Third, the performances. Jackson is magnificent. A musician who cannot take the pressure of his career and of the context in which he must perform yet maintains his artistic sensibility. Like so many real people, his fears become externalized, but he still maintains a sense of his reality. And it is this sense which makes his character credible when it comes to the plot.The plot is a good mystery but would have been hackneyed in lesser hands. And the plot works on at least two levels. Romulus may be crazy, but he knows what is going on and the images of his wife beautifully portrayed by Tamara Tunie keeps Romulus grounded. And since this is a character driven film, this conflict between Romulus's fears and fantasies with the realities he finds himself in, works beautifully thanks to Jackson's performance. On the second level the mystery qua mystery also works well. There are enough confusions to keep the viewer guessing.All in all a great film.

Samuel L Jackson is the finest actor of his generation, so what he's doing in this load of rubbish I don't know. Sam portrays Romulous Ledbetter, a gifted pianist whose mental illness destroys his career and leads to live in a cave. How he managed to overcome these demons and become successful only to sucumb to them again we never find out. The catalyst for his descent into civilisation is the discovery of a body in a tree near his cave. After this, the film turns into a second rate episode of Columbo with Sam uncovering clues left, right and centre only to be thrawted by masked men trying to keep the deadly secret. The general problem with this film is the story. It attempts to be a murder mystery which is trying to make a point about mental illness but instead becomes lost in itself amid a clutch of over the top performances and outlandish ideas (we are expected to believe a white banker would offer a suit and a place to stay to a delirious black man). This film sat on the shelf in Britain for three years and it only came out here last week. Sam (who also co-exec produces) is a far better actor than this material deserves and the only reasonable explanation as to why he took this was as a favour to his Eve's Bayou director Kasi Lemmons. Avoid at all costs and if you want a good Sam movie, go get Amos and Andrew.