Shooting Elizabeth (1992)

The greatest movie ever made..!

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

I've always been a fan of subtle, often unrecognized humor. You have to be alert to catch some of the funny bits in this movie. I.E., some of the comments made by the French burglar. Jeff Goldblum plays the perfect "Woody Allenesque" neurotic. The movie has that low budget Indy vibe that I actually find refreshing. The film that was used was not exactly crisp nor was the lighting the greatest either. When you can get Jeff Goldblum and Mimi Rodgers, not exactly neophytes I might add, to act in this corny comedy; I think this director has a piece of work to be proud of. It's not "Meet the Parents" caliper, although that movie also has a lot of subtleties that could be missed if you've got a lot on your mind at the time you watch it.

...Well, I think it's clever, anyway: "'Shooting Elizabeth' is a 28-minute high-speed farce crammed into 92 minutes."I am a rather devout fan of Goldblum and usually forgive some of the quirkier film choices of the '80s and early '90s ('Vibes', 'The Tall Guy', 'Mr Frost' was good, 'Framed'); and I do usually enjoy Rogers. But this...this is just...even I had to shake my head a little. It has its moments, but they are few and far between.This may be good for a rainy Sunday afternoon, but you may find yourself wanting to finish the job yourself so you can go on to more interesting fare.My vote: 3 out of 10 stars.

Tired of 13 difficult years with his wife Elizabeth, water company executive Howard Pigeon plans her murder on their second honeymoon. However on the day he has planned the deed she disappears leaving him a Dear John note. However the police suspect that he has killed her and begin to put together enough evidence for a trial.A silly plot is set out – but it's done with energy and that saves it. The first half is Howard plotting and the second half is him trapped in a web. The ending is a bit too tidy but it's quite sweet – bare in mind you'll have stopped looking for realism by the final scene. The thing that put me off is that it's set in Spain but it isn't used well at all – it feels like a cheap UK movie with the mix of accents and cheapish sets etc.What saves the movie is Jeff Goldblum – although he only saves it if you like his brand of nervous Jewish tick stuff, you know, like he does in every film. He is funny and he is right out there in terms of overplaying every part of his character. Without him this would not be worth watching. Rogers isn't any good – and isn't in it too much and the mainly Spainish cast are not very funny either. Only a cameo by the great Burt Kwouk takes the eye of Goldblum.Overall this is silly and feels cheap but Goldblum is great (unless you hate him) and he makes it worth watching.

This is one of the films which cause my wife to hide my remote from me, so that she doesn't have to endure any more of my weird movie selections. After this film, I have more sypmathy for her.** Some Spoilers**Normally I like both Jeff Goldblum and Mimi Rogers, but in this film Goldblum annoyed the hell out of me. His stream-of-consciousness, stammering blather appears in almost every scene. His mannered performance serves to attract attention to Goldblum and not the story itself. Not only would this repulse normal people from ever conversing with him, it feels like a fakey way to produce internal dialogue. We spend 90% of the film thinking that Pigeon is more of a Weasel than anything else, and suddenly we're supposed to say 'Awwwww' as they hug and kiss and make up (twice) at the end. Both the audience (and his wife) are supposed to conveniently forget that he planned her cold-blooded execution and only missed out on doing it because she abruptly left him first.Mimi Rogers lends her glowing screen presence to this limp noodle of a film, but her straightforward portrayal unfortunately accentuates the weirdness of Goldblum's; either both should have played it straight or both should have jumped off the deep end together. As a result, she winds up looking like she's waiting for Goldblum to take a breath at mid-bite (on the scenery, natch) to quickly inject her dialogue.Very little fits in what should have been a taut and funny thriller of sorts. The detective is made to appear as a buffoon when he is actually GETTING EVERYTHING RIGHT. All Pigeon does with his friends is berate them for not doing enough for him, and they act like they agree with him. His wife goes off on a hike in terrain so rough that a guide is required, but then we see her at a perfectly accessible campsite wearing walking shorts and a flannel shirt, not to mention the platoon of policemen clad only in uniform following Pigeon up the trail. We're supposed to be amused when minor characters are interviewed on TV saying how strangely Pigeon acted -- after everyone assumes his wife is dead -- but he WAS acting strangely, so strangely that you wonder why no one reported him to the police while he was staying at the resort.It's not an awful, 'Battlefield Earth' disaster, but it's not good at all. I give it a 3.