Stark Raving Mad

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Stark Raving Mad - 31/8/2007 12:59:09 PM

Bulletproof_Monk

Posts: 680
Joined: 4/10/2005

Just saw action comedy Stark Raving Mad and couldn't find an Empire review thread so thought I'd start my own.

Remember Rififi, the French movie with the completely silent heist scene? Well, Stark Raving Mad maybe the polar opposite. The whole movie is the heist, which is continously scored from beginning to end. From the minute the opening credits kick in until the time when the closing ones roll, the score is continous and sometimes integral to the plot.

Said plot is the story of Ben (Seann William Scott), who along with the predictably offbeat team are stealing a statue from a bank vault to pay off a debt to gangster Mr. Gregory (Lou Diamond Philips, yes, that one.) However, things predictably run far from smoothly, with rival gangsters, undercover FBI agents, nosy delivery boys, a runaway snake and a fortune fish all getting in the way at various points.

The fact that all this is entirely predictable (along with end "twist" that anyone with half a brain will work out after five minutes) doesn't actually diminish what is overall a good slice of popcorn, dumb entertainment. Scott reels in his trademark mugging to deliver a downbeat and effective performance, hinting that there might be life beyond Stifler yet. The straight to camera monologues could have been really clunky, but he pulls them off. The rest of the cast are watchable if nothing particularly special.

As is the norm with this sort of film, some ideas work, some don't. I liked the device of Scott excusing himself from the action in order to deliver his narration, but a tasteless subplot involving underage sex should have been cut out.

All in all, entertaining brainless popcorn trash that you won't remember in the morning.

3 out of 5.

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Post #: 1

RE: Stark Raving Mad - 2/9/2007 9:46:52 PM

Indio

Posts: 6707
Joined: 3/10/2005
From: London

It was kind of OK, but like some other American films about clubbing, it seems to think its far more profound and 'cool' than it really is (Groove springs to mind), the soundtrack was probably the best thing about it, but really the whole enterprise was more than a bit average, like Lock Stock meets Go (with Lou Diamond Phillips in it as an added 'bonus').

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'Think about the future.'

(in reply to Bulletproof_Monk)

Post #: 2