29 Palms

While pleased to see Bruce Gillis finally get a film released for all his effort as a filmmaker, this film is a great disappointment. Great cast, weak script and production. The plot is thin, and hard to follow. Keith David and Chris O'donnell deserve better.

the only reason i rented this movie was because of the title. It was interesting to me since i used to live in the city of 29 palms.

This movie felt like it was a quentin tarantino story, with oliver stone style direction. somewhat similar to Stones "U-Turn" just less complicated, and a less talented cast. Instead of Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, Billy Bob Thornton, and Jennifer Lopez. Its Chris O'Donnell, Rachael Leigh Cook, Jeremy Davies, and Michael Rapaport. Still pretty big names, just not good enough.

The direction wasnt horrible, and the editing was actually pretty good. it felt like it was the directors first attempt at this style of film making. the film held my attention all the up till the last five minutes. then i fell asleep. but i got the just of it. i look forward to future films by Leonardo Ricagni.

`29 Palms' is such a bad movie...no, wait, it's so bad one can't even call it a movie, so, let me start again...'29 Palms' is such a bad abomination , disguised as a movie, that there are no words negative enough to describe it. Let's put it this way, I'm embarrassed to say I even watched it all the way through. It's so bad that my DVD player never worked right again after running it.

A corrupt judge (Michael Lerner) is about to rule on an expansion to a neighboring Indian casino. He tells the Chief (Russell Means) that the FBI has put an undercover agent (Jeremy Davies) in his staff. The man witnesses a group of Indians killing his beloved. The Chief hires the Hit-man (Chris O'Donnell) to kill him. They pay the Hit-man with a bag of cash but he's robbed by a casino Security Guard (Jon Polito) who in turn is robbed by the Cop (Michael Rapaport) who then leaves the bag with the Ticket Clerk (Bill Pullman) for 29 Palms. The bag is then mistakenly taken by the guy originally slated to be killed who picks up the Waitress (Rachael Leigh Cook) stranded when her car broke down.

It's interesting to follow the bag at the beginning. It has a silly ridiculousness about it. It stops being interesting after awhile. I wonder if director Leonardo Ricagni is trying to copy the Coen brothers or something like that. It becomes a boring mess. Chris O'Donnell is not nearly scary enough as a hit-man. Rapaport is a good weasel but none of the characters are particularly compelling. The movie wants it so bad but just doesn't have it.

Extremely disappointing story, completely lacking originality and creative flair.

Wasted cast, no development, too much reliance on coincidence, not funny, not interesting to look at... put you off yet? Story is the old hackneyed idea of a misplaced bag of money. Seen it done before? Probably. Each introduced character wants to get their hands on the stash of cash and we're given Jeremy Davies' character to cheer on, and others to jeer on.

What follows lacks any freshness or interest, which is really disappointing. Probably what could've saved this, if anything, would be a dash of Coen perspective and dark humour. A sudden attempt at inventive editing in the last twenty minutes does little to pick up the pace (if you're still awake) and even a turn by Bill Pullman can't do much to save it. Rachel Leigh Cook is pretty, though...