Out of Season (2004)

Purely Joyful Movie!

An Exercise In Nonsense

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

**SPOILERS** Weird 1940's Hollywood type film noir filmed entirely in the former Communist Peoples Republic of Romania of all places! The movie has former Chicago Jewel thief Harry Barlow, Dennis Hopper, get involved with this aimless drifter Pierre, Jordan Frieda, who at first tried to rob Harry's beach-front bar. Catching Pierre with his pants down Harry has him put under his wing and trained to rip off the local amusement park's daily take. This all is to happen after the amusement parks grand opening of it's world famous roller costar known as the anti-gravity ride.Pierre ended up getting stuck at this dingy coastal town when his money, that he had hidden in his hotel room, was stolen by this homicidal religious fanatic Simon Guant, David Murray. Simon got Pierre to rip off Harry's Bar only to have Harry, who caught him in the act, get Pierre to work for him instead. Harry plans to use Pierre to rip off the amusement park's owner Michael Philips, Jim Carter, take when the park opens.What both Harry and Pierre don't know is that Simon is playing it both ways in planning to have Michael murdered with the help of Michael's cheating wife Eileen, Gina Gershon,whom he's planning to double-cross at the very last moment. The slippery and slimy Simon has Elieen confess on tape, without her knowing, that she's to have Michael murdered which will be all the evidence that Michael will need, by paying Simon $10,000.00 for it, to get an air-tight divorce against her!To round the utterly confusing movie plot out there's also Michael's snotty and spoiled daughter Kelly, Dominique Swain, who's Pierre girlfriend and is also looking to stick it to both her hated parents Michael & Eileen. Kelly is also unknowing working in concert with the greedy and unscrupulous banker Fraser MacDonald, William Armstrong, who's got a lean of Michael's amusement park by him being behind on his loan payments to his bank. It's Fraser who's also just dying to get his hands on the 60 aces of prime waterfront real-estate, that comprises Michael's amusement park, and turn it into a multi-million dollar shopping mall!***SPOILER ALERT*** The whole mind boggling plot, by Simon Eileen Pierre Kelly & Harry, falls apart with Pierre breaking into Michael's house and thus keeping his wife Eileen from murdering him and being stopped by her partner in crime Simon, who planned to double-cross her all along, from doing it at the very last moment! Harry who, like almost everyone else involved in break-in at Michael's pad, has no idea of what's going on and is later attacked and both brutally tortured-as well as crucified-and murdered by the crazed and criminally deranged Simon. The by then helplessly drug and alcohol addicted Simon thought that both Harry and his accomplice Pierre ripped off Michaels' amusement park receipts as well as his wife's, Eileen, jewelry which in fact they didn't!In the end Simon,together with the femme fatal Eileen, ends up getting everything that he so rightfully deserves with Pierre taking off in the by then late Harry's 1969 firetruck red Cadillac Seville and riding into the California, or is it Romanian, sunset. It's now left for Pierre girlfriend Kelly to put on an act, as well as throw off suspicion on herself, as the grieving and orphaned daughter of her dead parents Michael & Eileen that she unintentionally had a hand in doing in as well as Simon that she very intentionally did leave hanging on a vine.

..... unintentionally funny movies. Not being an actor I still know that had I been cast in this thing I would have had to do many takes; laughing during scenes that one should not have been laughing in: The character Kelly, near the end of the movie, portentously looks at the normally turbulent winter ocean scene and says, "I think there's a storm coming"! No kidding, Ms. Meterorologist.: Poorly written script that through redundancy made sure you 'got the point': Gina Gerson doing a bad impersonation of a sexy woman: Dennis Hopper directed to show way too much 'feeling' and 'softness'; this guy was number one choice for the Mafia in Chicago?: Hopper knows that Simeon has ripped off a dozen or so cases of his bar's booze and does nothing about it!: Haven't Pierre and Simeon ever watched any of the CSI's?; they left fingerprints ........ everywhere!: Handcuffs on Gerson that she slipped out of?; doesn't the screenwriter know how police handcuffs work?: Simeon suspects the heavily disabled Harry of pulling off two killings and the robbery? - Pierre 'knows' that Simeon is going to be in the church praying after the killings?..... and then Simeon, offered proof by the virginal Pierre that he had jewelry lifted from the robbery.....let's him go?! Since I was unable to find any evidence that 'Out of Season' was ever reviewed in a theatrical release, then it must have been a straight-to-DVD deal. Bravo to the distributors for not buying this piece of garbage and bravo to the producers for seeing how bleak the movie's financial future would be in trying to release it theatrically and instead cutting their losses and going to cable/dish.

*****MAY OR MAY NOT CONTAIN SPOILERS***** I bought this movie for a dollar at a pawn shoppe along with twenty other movies, so I didn't get a chance to view this for a while. My roommate watched it and said it was garbage, filled with senseless violence and bad acting and directing. I finally sat down and watched it, and I was left speechless. The directing was incredible, it reminded me of Roger Avary's 'Killing Zoe'. It was just a great neo-noir flick. Depressing, dark, and utterly incredible. Acting is well done, especially David Murray as Simeon. The lighting effects were spectacular and Avary's fast-paced angle-switching was breath-taking. And the symbolism...oh, the symbolism...just one thing to say about that...that clown is amazing! Anyway, if you're looking for a good neo-noir drama with well done acting, great symbolism, and directing that will leave you speechless, then go pick this up.It was certainly worth a dollar.

Screenwriter and director Jevon O'Neill has brought us a modern morality film for the age, worthy of its medieval stage predecessors. Themes of lust, money, sadism, scheming and religion fuel this gravity ride of a finely detailed plot to its inevitable conclusion.The film begins its full circle with drifter Pierre looking out to sea toward the light. Indeed, the use of light, darkness and grayness can be seen as a further metaphor throughout, and is exquisitely crafted. Harry soon develops into Pierre's clichéd mentor, but without giving too much away it can be said that Dennis Hopper's performance as the film progresses redeems more than just the development of Harry as a character. Likewise, fairground owner Michael (Jim Carter) begins with a curiously unconvincing mid-Atlantic accent, which mellows as the plot unfolds. His scheming daughter and sadistic wife are well casted as Gina Gershon and Dominique Swain. Simeon's complex motives are the key to understanding the plot, and David Murray's drawing of the character detail is a screen masterpiece. Out of Season is unlikely to achieve mainstream success, but could conceivably become a cult classic in the footsteps of, say, The Wicker Man."You can take your chances on the other rides, this is the nearest to being alive."- Richard Thompson