For the next two weeks, I've decided that I'll be reviewing classic Ben Affleck crap movies for this column. As Reindeer Games is famous for being one of Affleck's worst films, I figured it would be a great place to start. For those who haven't seen it, Reindeer Games is one of the worst movies of the last decade. But is it so bad it's good? Find out after the break.
Ben Affleck plays Rudy, a car thief serving a five year stint in prison. His cellmate, Nick, is always talking about his beautiful girlfriend Ashley (Charlize Theron), who he met through prison correspondence. Nick has never actually met Ashley, and Ashley has never even seen a picture of Nick. Of course, like all men in action movies who talk about the girl they love, Nick dies five minutes later. Now released, Rudy decides to say he's Nick, so that he can get all the sweet lovin' he's missed out on for the past few years. When Ashley's brother Gabriel(Gary Sinese) enters the picture, all sorts of trouble starts.
See, Gabriel thinks that Rudy is Nick. Nick used to work at a casino. Gabriel wants to rob said casino. All sorts of misunderstandings start. The only thing keeping this film from being a standard thriller is the sheer insanity of some of the concepts, such as a scene where Gabriel throws darts at Rudy to intimidate him, or the fact that the film opens with an image of a dead santa.
A lot of the enjoyment of this film comes from watching Ben Affleck try his best to be Bruce Willis and fail miserably. He has a line about hot chocolate that made me laugh my ass off. However, this film isn't as over the top as some previous entries in this column. It's restrained up until the very end, when a ridiculous plot twist stopped me in my tracks. I had to pause the film and try to figure out the logic behind the "twist". It ended up making me laugh my ass off.
Overall, this was a pretty bad movie, and a pretty good bad movie. So if you're looking for a bad movie to laugh to, you could do a lot worse.
Critical Score: 1.5 out of 5 stars
Crapsterpieces: 4 out of 5 stars
This is a good bad movie. I like how every character tells you everything they have done and are going to do.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love your entry title... crapsterpieces.
I think the best part may be Isaac Hayes random cameo as the crazy guy. "There are monsters in the Jello" is one of the best lines of any film I've ever seen
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