Reckless (1995)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

hyped garbage

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

I saw this film on Christmas Day in 2001 on PBS. Nine years to the day later it's still as vivid in my memory. After seeing it, as the credits started to roll, so did the tears down my face.It surprises me that I never heard of this film when it came out as it's artistically a gem of a film. The acting is superb of very high caliber. It's got a twisted story in more ways than one, extremely compelling for those that appreciate a complex, tightly woven plot line.If you have ever been betrayed by someone near/dear, this story will reach in on a visceral level and pull you in.The overall message is powerful. It comes full circle from the extreme vulnerability to empowerment as it underscores the moral qualities and staying true to one's core values even in the face of overwhelming adversities.My nephew is going through some hard times, I wish he could see this film today....Merry Christmas!

It's always good to see Mia Farrow at work, but she's lost among the snowflakes in this hectic disaster. Farrow, playing wife to Tony Goldwyn (though he's young enough to be her son), appears to be living an idyllic life inside a winter wonderland until one day when she gets a startling dose of reality: her husband admits he's hired a man to kill her. She flees into the night, taking refuge with a bizarre couple who want to help rebuild her existence. Screenwriter Craig Lucas adapted his own play (and brought with it that ridiculous title), and so has no one else to blame for the picture's bumpy rhythm and off-putting characters. The production design and art direction of "Reckless" are both rather interesting, although they are services rendered for an inane and alienating screenplay. It's supposed to be a dark holiday comedy, though the entire cast is at a loss with this unfunny, occasionally offensive material. *1/2 from ****

I was going to be all apologetic for praising this film, but if you look at the ratings for this in detail you'll see that the MAJORITY of people give this film a rating of 5 and above. So how does IMDb arrive at its "weighted average" of 4.4? Ridiculous. Lots of '9's and '10's--and are we to think that all of those '5's, '6's, '7's, and '8's are put in to 'game the system'? Puh-lease.The only thing that keeps this movie from being a '10' for me is the fact that it's crazy plot developments keep coming and coming and coming, with a ton of false endings. It gives you a headache.But the utter brilliance of so much of this film--Deborah Rush as Trish the embezzler is, all on her own, worth the price of admission! The surprising twists with the Mary-Louise Parker character? The brilliant art direction, with its warped vision of our heroine's world as a winter wonderland in a snow globe gone mad? The plain old beauty of Stephen Dorff? There is A LOT to love about this movie. If you love movies, if you care about and are interested in movies as an art form, you will want to see this movie.It's incredibly funny, it's beautiful, it's strange, it's wearying. It's not for everyone, but I wouldn't want to be everyone. If you're thoughtful, intelligent, and patient, you will appreciate the superb acting, film-making, and atmosphere this film provides.

Produced by International Playhouse Pictures, it looks as if filmed in a doll house. Everybody's a liar, everything is dream-like, toy-like for no good reason. I'm not saying everything in all movies should be totally realistic, but such unbelievable fantasy things and situations in one movie are way too much. How did they get these fine actors -actresses particularly- to this movie? It's nice to see Mia again; if we were meant to understand why her husband wants to kill her, Mia does do it well. Not funny, not moving, just fake. Stephen Dorff briefly appears at the end, fitting for a play maybe, less for a movie, but this isn't one to measure things at. Terrible.