An Occasional Hell (1996)

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

An Occasional Hell was a watchable film that never really went anywhere.I thought Tom Berenger was going to be the killer, teaching a class on the subject, victim's wife asking Berenger to solve it having seen his name on a document in the victim's possessions, her thinking he is the killer. It was a given that they were going to get sexual, but as for the killer just being the guys on the land shooting them, that was completely bland but also surprising to me that this is all the writers had come up with. They were really digging a hole for the body out the front of the house, really. My prediction would of made for a hell of a lot better film. The acting was fine, just nothing much to work with. Kari Wuhrer doesn't really get to play a character here, she is briefly in the start then only in Berenger's imagination. The fact that it is his imagination, you would think her appearances wouldn't be so dull. Why the hell is he imagining her up a tree? It is also odd since he had never met her in the first place.

... and that's about the main thing going for it, and even he has a flat butt. Seriously, the whole thing about the murder weapon being a Civil War era musket has been done to death on the mediocre detective shows filling space on the TV schedules today; and it's pretty obvious who the killer is within the first 20 minutes. The performances aren't bad; in fact they're too good for the B-grade material. Hope everyone was well paid. You should really only see the movie if you have to watch EVERYTHING with Tom Berenger, or Steven Lang, or Kari Wurher, or Valerie Golina, etc. Ellen Green from "Little Shop of Horrors" makes a very brief appearance, and it was nice to see her again - she doesn't really get the film / TV work she deserves; kind of like Celeste Holme's career, which should have been bigger than it was. I saw this on cable; maybe the DVD has some extra features that make it more worth the while.

This is the quintessential B-movie. Despite the presence of some recognizable "talents" in the cast, it is as obvious and amateur as films with budgets over $1 million get. It seems as though Tom Berenger, who also produced the film, decided he wanted to be in a movie where he would get to "work" with the always semi-nude Kari Wuhrer. Fortunately there is ample screen time for Wuhrer, who haunts Berenger ala Hamlet's ghost as a Daisy Duke-ish trollop. Berenger's buddy Stephen Lang (they worked together on Gettysburg) probably didn't need much convincing for a role featuring several sex scenes with the curvaceous Kari. Tom was probably chatting about making the movie with pal and regular co-star Charlie Sheen (Platoon and Major League), who suggested that Valeria Golino (whom Sheen got to know filming Hot Shots) would have the perfect nipple's for Berenger's sex scene. The film features shots of the actors at needlessly odd angles, and has several lines that are unintentionally laugh out loud funny. Poor Ellen Greene wastes a few minutes picking up her check, and Berenger's tearful admission is a hoot. 20 minutes into the film (SPOILER ALERT), you see Geoffrey Lewis (who has perfected the dim wit role) digging a grave-sized hole, but it's not until an hour later that voila, Berenger realizes that might be a good place to look for a dead body. If you have a six-pack and are in an MST3K kind of mood, rent this and ad-lib your night away.

This is not a stellar performance by Tom Berenger. This obvious low-budget movie does not make an impression. The plot seems to have many holes and the story line never really comes together. Berenger, a former cop, and now college professor is lured into finding the killer of a woman's husband and also tries to find the husband's lover. The movie's flashbacks are confusing and never make things that clear. The movie jumps around too much and it never gives the viewer a chance to get comfortable with any one character or situation. This movie falls short of expectations and is one of Berenger's saddest roles and performances. He never seems to be comfortable with his character and it seems way too obvious in this movie.