Change Your Image
mitch2209
Reviews
The Phantom of the Open (2021)
Disappointing
While the real story of Maurice Flitcroft is quite interesting, this movie version is overall disappointing. The main character, Mr Flitcroft, is portrayed as a likeable simpleton who, despite growing up in Britain, is oblivious to the fact that the British Open golf championship is played by the world's very best golfers. To suspend belief and think that the movie version of Maurice Flitcroft, having never played a round of golf in his life, actually believes that he can win the tournament is just plain ridiculous. The real Maurice Flitcroft managed to enter the tournament because he was a bit of a scoundrel, a scallywag and a trouble maker seeing 'fame and fortune'. The movie version was actually seeking the 10,000 pound prize money as he was likely to be retrenched from his job as a crane operator.
What would have been more interesting would have been to explore exactly how the Royal and Ancient Golf Club (who run the British Open) managed to allow Flitcroft to enter the qualifying rounds as a complete unknown and how he was able to complete 18 holes and score 121 without anyone alerting the authorities. Even better would have been an attempt to try to delve into why the real Maurice Flitcroft was so determined to seek fame and fortune in a sport he had no experience at, but this was passed up.
As a side note, a real missed opportunity in the film was when the authorities became aware that Flitcroft had scored 63 (for his opening nine holes). When informed of this, the official in charge should have said, "63? That's excellent!" and then should have been informed that it was only for the front nine. The makers of the movie didn't seem to understand this.
Overall, the film is a disappointment, making Flitcroft out to be a loveable idiot whose heart is in the right place instead of a more interesting character with a strange desire for attention and infamy. Someone the film makers chose to ignore for the sake of a few cheap laughs. A pity.
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
So bad it is not worthy of review
Forget that the film was directed by John Cassavetes or that it starred Ben Gazarra and just look at the story. From the title we know that a Chinese Bookie is killed and we eventually discover that the Gazarra character must carry out a murder to pay off his gambling debt. Unfortunately, by the time this is revealed in the film, most of the audience will be asleep.
The main problems with this movie are that the story is ridiculous and the main character is not someone 'to root for'. Cosmo Vittelli (Gazarra) is a delusional, poor gambler who owns possibly the world's lousiest strip club and is not someone we dearly want to have succeed. He takes three of his strippers to watch him lose $23,000 at a gambling club and then we're supposed to hope he gets away with murdering a 'Chinese bookie' as a way of paying it off? I felt sympathy for the protagonist (Gazarra), but the guy was simply a fool. If he was someone to be admired and he accidentally got into debt to some criminals, then yes, I may have wanted him to succeed or maybe to get even. But the idiot paid off a huge debt at the start of the movie and then goes about getting into another one immediately after!
By far the worst aspect of this movie (apart from the story) is the dialogue. It seems that Cassavetes wanted plenty of impromptu acting in this movie to make it more 'lifelike' and 'realistic', but it simply didn't work. The actors clearly don't know what to say and end up repeating lines over and over. The scene where Gazarra is talking to his barman in a telephone booth after his car breaks down is just awful and unnecessary.
The only redeeming feature of this movie is the lighting, which I thought was quite good. The rest of the movie (the story, the acting, the dialogue, even the editing) is so bad it is hard to describe. If I had paid to watch this movie, I would have seriously asked for my money back. There was a good reason why it was pulled from cinemas after only 6 days - because it was absolute rubbish.
Quincy M.E.: The Face of Fear (1982)
Phobia introduced with no relation to the crime committed.
'The Face of Fear' marks a welcome return to actually seeing Quincy devote his time to establish a cause of death (instead of speaking to a panel at a hearing) but it involves a by-story that has nothing at all to do with the crime committed in the episode: namely, agoraphobia. The story involves a lady who suffers from agoraphobia and happens to witness a murder. Her condition has no relation to the overall story and simply serves as another excuse for the makers of 'Quincy M.E.' to trot out another medical condition that they felt needed to be brought to the attention of the viewing audience. Quincy is alerted to the condition by (naturally) an attractive, female psychiatrist who asks him to drop everything and attend a therapy session in an attempt for him to help her prove that the agoraphobic lady actually witnessed the crime and isn't nuts. Quincy (as always) goes beyond the scope of his duties and in doing so becomes more aware of the condition, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with solving the crime that the lady witnessed. If the phobia was somehow related to the main story (the murder that Quincy investigates), then that is acceptable but since it has nothing to do with it, it can only be seen as another attempt to educate the audience rather than entertain them. To make things worse, the agoraphobic lady is outside on the beach when she witnesses the murder! I was disturbed also to see (for the first time in the series) Quincy threaten a man accused of knowing who was responsible for the murder of the Hispanic woman that he would be going to prison for a long time, which is what one would expect from Lt. Monahan, but not Quincy. The ending is also quite ridiculous with Quincy magically knowing where to find the agoraphobic lady when she is in danger (he naturally assists Monahan even though, as coroner, he is not required or authorised to do so) and actually orders Monahan around during the final chase, which is absurd. Quincy's foolishness in participating in the chase also means he ends up having a gun pointed at him, which is unheard of for a coroner. The actual forensic work that Quincy does in this episode (or rather, orders Sam to perform) is mildly interesting, especially when one considers that he immediately assumes that the deceased Hispanic lady is automatically the one that the agoraphobic lady saw murdered. Quincy also instantly identifies the murder 'weapon' with his naked eye in a matter of seconds, another amazing feat. Overall, I found this episode annoying for the reasons of the agoraphobia having no relation to the murder case, the fact that Quincy acted like a cop and also for the weak, weak ending at Danny's, which doesn't even deserved to be mentioned here.