Red Letters

Like many other respondents, I ran across this genially goofy mystery while surfing and didn't expect to stick with it more than a few minutes. But it grabbed me from the beginning and held up almost to the end. Thanks to the person who noted that the film was shot in 21 days on a shoestring. That accounts for the gaps in the plot (like certain scenes that we expect to see but were probably never filmed). But the shoestring production makes the acting, the comic touches, and the overall unpredictability of the plot all the more impressive. The screenplay found some really ingenious things to do with these likable characters.

It wouldn't work without excellent performances. The director strikes me as someone who really works well with actors. Coyote gives a really fine comic performance, showing more emotional range than he's usually allowed to. Balk, Piven, and Kinski are also very good. Ernie Hudson, who has played this cop role a dozen times, is a treat in the knowing and yet not smug notes he hits. You get the feeling he's seen it all, knows exactly where it's going, and will just let it get there before he steps in to mop things up.

The film struck me as primarily a comedy (which is pretty much given away near the end by the little alligator in Pauly Shore's backyard wading pool)--but I'm surprised more respondents haven't noticed this. It had me consistently chuckling throughout.

I guess I'm a sucker for these offbeat little films that you don't expect much from. But in the last few months, I've left the local multiplex shaking my head in disbelief that good filmmakers could make "big" thrillers as bad as Twisted and Taking Lives. Red Letters is a heck of a lot more fun to watch, and deserves more exposure.

What a great cast and what a pathetic attempt at a film. The script is full of holes from beginning to end. Incoherent, not cohesive...utterly ridiculous. One of the most talented/beautiful actresses in the world (and I'm talking about Nastassja Kinski) is without a single memorable line here. Worse, she supposedly dyes her hair halfway thru the movie, but it's obvious she's just wearing a cheap black wig bought from a drag queen costume shop. The best moments are given to a character actor and his dog in the apartment building that lead actor Peter Coyote lives in. Fairuza Balk is photographed poorly, to boot. She looks like an overweight freshman who's pigged out at too many all-you-can-eat-student-cafeteria-buffets. I was so looking forward to this film. I WANTED to like it, but I think I'd rather watch Nastassja read the phone book, with her OWN hair.

Has to be on of Peter Coyote's best acting jobs today. Of course Peter is most recognized from his charater in the epic film E.T. and of course, who can forget The Legend of Billy Jean. Peter portrays and alcoholic college professor(Dennis Burke) just released from a former College on the grounds of sexual harassment. Opening scene in this movie is one of a kind. At his new College, Dennis is befriended by a wanna be computer hacker, Thurston Clarque(Jeremy Piven), and not a bad portrayal of the computer hacker from Piven. As Dennis tries to adjust to his new living, he begins receiving letters from an unknown woman(Natassja Kinski), trying to reach the man that once lived in the apartment. Dennis begins making contact with this myterious woman, and only to find out that she is in a woman's correctional facility, for a brutal crime she claims she didn't do. If things couldn't get any more complicated for Dennis, his sexually frustrated student, Gretchen, played by flawlessly by (Fairuza Balk ) is now infatuated with him, probably because of the sexual art book he wrote in the past. Trying to deal with Gretchen and Lydia, Dennis' friend Thurston has some how hacked in the correctional facility to help Lydia escape. Reasons for this act are not clearly informed in the movie. now Lydia is out of jail and Thurston now in custody, puts Dennis in a world of lies, deciet, and murder. Other fellow cast members include Ernie Hudson who gives a great supporting actn and Udo Kier. Watch and enjoy.

This was a surprise. Peter Coyote is one of the few actors I can imagine who actually convinces you that he is an expert on Hawthorne. Unlike many such movies, the college setting was convincing. Nastassja Kinski smolders quietly, and effectively, as the girl who may or may not be a murderer, Fairuza Balk is enticing and funny as the dean's daughter who falls for Coyote, and when is it not a pleasure to watch Jeremy Piven doing "Jeremy Piven"?

Any movie that makes you want to re-read Hawthorne is worth watching. Maybe For English Majors Only, but thoroughly enjoyable to the end.

I kept expecting to turn it off at any moment, yet the characters were unpredictable and the writing kept this little film moving along at a nice clip. Before I knew it I was hooked. Sure, the plot gets a little clunky near the end, but everyone involved with this picture seemed to enjoy themselves. There is even an homage to Demme's Something Wild, which this film begins to resemble near the end. Overall, three stars, and sure to be a minor hit for the few video stores that are likely to pick this up.