Zipper (2015)

Overrated and overhyped

Excellent adaptation.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Most people probably didn't get the symbolic message.When the lawyer pays his visits to whores, he hands them over the envelope full of cash.When from (a supposed morally clean) Prosecutor he evolves to senator, he gets an envelope full of cash, by his clients...Get It? Who are the whores? That's what the movie is about.Hypocrisy from everybody involved. Great movie!

Have a hankering for those 1990s sex thrillers involving powerful people drawn into sordid, beautifully-lit clinches that threaten to tear apart their career and their family? Welcome to Reckless, which has been blandly renamed from "Zipper" in the US. This straight-to-DVD thriller – partly based on the exploits of governor Eliot Spitzer in 2008 – has an intriguing setup which grows increasingly tiresome as the story wears on. Patrick Wilson, who has the greatest fake smile in the business, plays ambitious state prosecutor Sam, and he has his eyes on congress. Unfortunately he also has his eyes on the ladies, and he's willing to risk his marriage to the suspecting Jeannie (Lena Headey) in order to get his end away with a series of escort girls. Meanwhile George (Richard Dreyfuss) is grooming him for life at the top (and life under the microscope), while a wily journalist (Ray Winstone) rifles through his private life. The drama lies in Sam's face as all these pressures – which exist in a highly competitive and masculine world – bear down upon him. Boo hoo, you might say, and you'd kind of be right. While Wilson is talented and nuanced enough to help us relate to this reprehensible talisman of white male privilege, the film itself seems unsure of where its sympathies lie, or indeed what the story is really about. Ostensibly it's interested in the fallout of adultery and the radiation of guilt, but it never goes deep and it's strangely boring. The meaning of fidelity in the modern world has been intelligently explored in some great movies, from Eyes Wide Shut to Gone Girl, but Reckless comes across as mimicry, resembling its peers only in the most superficial ways. The neorealist aesthetic, with its ridiculous saturated colouration, resembles David Fincher or Steven Soderbergh, but the dramatic content only matches the latter at his most indulgent. The serial killer score adds to the tabloid self-importance of it all. The problem with this sub-genre is so often that it suffers from a lack of awareness of its own absurdity. More than once we get a risible speech suggesting that really all human beings are like this, deep down, and that the only difference is that those in the public eye are unfairly held to a higher standard. Never do we get the counterargument: that Sam and his ilk behave this way out of some other impotence, or that their lust for power and sex are two sides of the same character trait. Wilson carries the film, and he's supported by a very fine cast. Headey is solid in the role of Sam's formidable wife, while a miscast Winstone makes the most of a slightly thankless supporting role. Then there's Dreyfuss, who appears to be acting in a movie far smarter than the one we're actually watching. Also, John Cho needs to be in more films. But none of the cast can elevate such hackneyed material. Shoot it however stylishly you want – there's no escaping the clichés of punched steering wheels, illicit phone calls watched from windows, and dead-eyed faces sinking in baths. It's a film to be found when flicking channels, and one to be forgotten within seconds of flicking again.

I saw this movie after having watched the 5.7 IMDb rating. I found myself glued to it from the beginning until the end. Afterwards I couldn't understand what's about it that people supposedly don't like. The movie touches a subject that while probably very common in real life you seldom see portrayed in movies. Sex-addiction. I can only remember seeing it once or twice before, in the awful and overrated Nymphomaniac, and in the decent Auto Focus by Paul Schrader. This was easily the most entertaining one. Great actors all around. Among them a hardly recognizable Richard Dreyfuss, in a serious part. The movie maybe occasionally had a TV-movie feel to it, not that it mattered, the dialogue and ending kept you thinking. Many memorable lines. If you liked House of Cards I think you're gonna like this movie as well. Even if the main character isn't quite as psychotic as the lead from that show. 8 out of 10

Mora Stephens' Zipper is inspired by politicians like Bill Clinton and John Edwards,whose careers are highlighted by their involvement in sex scandals.It stars Patrick Wilson and Lena Heady.The screenplay involves a legal prosecutor who is running for office that develops an addiction towards escorts after refusing an affair with a beauteous intern.Sam Ellis is on the rise as a lawyer.He has developed a great career as a legal prosecutor.He definitely has a bright future if he pursues a political career and runs for public office.After refusing an affair with a beautiful intern,he unfortunately develops an obsessive compulsion towards high-class prostitutes working as escorts.He now finds himself in danger of losing it all after his benefactors call upon him to run as Congressman.After a well-known journalist and his wife discover his addiction,he promises them to keep himself in check only for the viewer to realize in the end that overcoming himself is far from the truth.No question that the story was predictable and typical of its genre.Added to that,it tried to present many themes instead of trying to focus on a particular message.But what the deficiencies the screenplay it may have was made up by the depth of the characters involved in it.The viewer realize that Sam Ellis' needs aren't met by her wife despite how much she has helped him in his career as a lawyer.We also learn the Sam's wife was once involved in an affair before they were married.The escorts were great people who tried to meet the emotional needs of their customers that was missing from their marriage.Credit should also be given to the performances of the cast particularly Patrick Wilson,Lena Heady and Ray Winstone as Sam,Sam's wife and the journalist respectively.In the end,character depth and the performances were reasons to see this movie despite its screenplay.