Spanish Judges (2000)

Great Film overall

As Good As It Gets

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is not a bad movie, but it sure doesn't greet the viewer in any expected way. You're not given any hit about who to like or who is the bad guy, so if you get stuck trying to figure that out it's going to make the movie less enjoyable. Although it's twisty plot makes you think that's what it's all about, you really have to approach it as a character-driven piece. Even the characters you end up disliking (I found Mars Girl annoying to no end) are played well, so you can't really fault the actors for how it doesn't all quite come together. I found myself *wanting* to like the movie more, but I felt a little too isolated as a viewer to care that much.

Im a huge M Lillard fan that's why I ended up watching this movie. Honestly I doubt that if he wasn't in the movie i would of enjoyed it as much or even watched it but once I did watch it realize the story was pretty decent. A bad ending I must say but I did see it coming. It's a low budget movie and some of the actors weren't really good but all in all I rated this movie 7/10.The suspense of wondering what Lillard was actually up to was what really keeped me interested in this movie.Its a good rental!7/10

Although I did give this film a high rating, I was unsatisfied with the ending.Jack (Matthew Lillard) is a slick con artist who drops in on Max (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Jamie (Valerina Golino), two small time crooks and wannabe con artists. You can tell pretty early on from quick flashbacks that most of what he says is a bunch of lies (don't worry, that's not a spoiler - they make that very clear in the first twenty minutes of the movie). He needs their help to carry out an illegal transaction, something which they have never done before. Max, a raging hot head, looks down his nose at Jack, but Jamie realizes that with their financial troubles, they don't have much of a choice.All three lead characters give terrific performances as low life criminals, and Lillard is better in this film than I have ever seen him before. Golino, who I am not familiar with, and the always excellent D'Onofrio are great as a paranoid couple. The characters may seem too shallow for some, but they required a great deal of intensity that I doubt most A-list actors could muster, especially D'Onofrio's borderline-psychotic Max.Here are the spoilers.I enjoyed the movie, but I thought the ending was a bit unrealistic and predictable. Not bad, mind you - it was ok. But Jack just drops in as a mysterious lying stranger, and you can tell that he will most likely win in the end; you've never seen a film quite this odd before, and yet, it still seems cliche` somehow. Jack was also a tad bit on the slimy, spineless side, and Jamie and Max's paranoia seems like it would have been assets to them rather than hindrances. The fight scene at the end was also poorly choreographed and hard to swallow - Lillard simply can't look as mean and tough as D'Onofrio, not to mention that D'Onofrio's character was meaner as well.Aside from this, it is worth renting if you are into violent movies with plot twists.

I thought this movie did an excellent job of showing just how unpredictable love can be. It was a tale of treachery and manipulation gone wrong and the consequences that must be paid.The plot kept one guessing what would happen next and was full of surprises.