29 Palms (2003)

That was an excellent one.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

A corrupt judge (Michael Lerner) is about to rule on an expansion to a neighboring Indian casino. He tells the Chief (Russell Means) that the FBI has put an undercover agent (Jeremy Davies) in his staff. The man witnesses a group of Indians killing his beloved. The Chief hires the Hit-man (Chris O'Donnell) to kill him. They pay the Hit-man with a bag of cash but he's robbed by a casino Security Guard (Jon Polito) who in turn is robbed by the Cop (Michael Rapaport) who then leaves the bag with the Ticket Clerk (Bill Pullman) for 29 Palms. The bag is then mistakenly taken by the guy originally slated to be killed who picks up the Waitress (Rachael Leigh Cook) stranded when her car broke down.It's interesting to follow the bag at the beginning. It has a silly ridiculousness about it. It stops being interesting after awhile. I wonder if director Leonardo Ricagni is trying to copy the Coen brothers or something like that. It becomes a boring mess. Chris O'Donnell is not nearly scary enough as a hit-man. Rapaport is a good weasel but none of the characters are particularly compelling. The movie wants it so bad but just doesn't have it.

the friend i first watched this with hated the movie when he rented it. of course, this friend also bought XXX, having not ever seen it. so i guess that speaks for that.*spoiler(s)*the script is phenomenal. i really enjoyed the touches of humor, especially since they were so off the wall most of the time. i get a kick out of the chief trying to talk like a movie Indian. the whole bit with the guy not being able to "sire" is insanely funny, and i love it when he pretends to die with the other patient's heart monitor. any of the scenes with the sheriff are great. my favorite punchline of the movie is: "son, you don't need a lawyer, you need a library card." but how about that chase sequence at the end? a limo trying to ram a bus? now that's just absolutely hilarious.otherwise, i like how this is a post-post-western. it's still got guns and a sheriff and bad guys going after money and indians. and even though the drifter says it's really about trying to find someone you can trust, i know better. it's really about our country screwing the indians, all over again. the chief's final bit about white people taking their land, and then giving them whiskey, and then pitying them as drunks, and then giving them gambling, and then making them beg for their money... well... it's a bit preachy... but then all westerns (and post-westerns and post-post-westerns) are supposed to be about the dying frontier. the frontier is dead, but the Indian has cancer. i think the opening shot of the pro-Indian-casino billboard and the interpretive shot of the chief's rage (as he's running at the camera, towards the bus) towards the end of the film perfectly underscore this tribute to the dying survivors of the frontier.in addition, i thought the camera work was well done. although the director recycled his few obvious uses of technique, namely the flashback montages and the 360-degree pan shots, i thought they were decently spaced and efficient. i also really appreciated the tastefulness that was used in filming the sex scene. panning away, and letting the imagination do the work is what really makes an intimate scene sexy. lubitsch knew that, and apparently so does ricagni.

My cable station rented this film for $3.95, and considering that the cast was a bunch of well known and good actors, I thought I'd give it chance.I'm now writing the cable company and asking for a refund, and I might actually sue them for cruel and unusual punishment.This is without a doubt the worst film ever made with such a decent cast. The direction is horrible. The screenplay should have been destroyed before it was ever read by anyone. The editing blows. The production sets are embarrassing to watch. If you want to laugh at total ineptness and don't have to pay to watch this, you might want to get a few friends together, have a few drinks, and get ready to be astonished at how bad this film really is.

FBI agent, Davies, comes into contact with a bag of money, but he's in a some-what-long line of people who do. The people who run the gaming casino in the desert want it back. Davies witnesses murder while trying to keep it. Rapaport is a crooked cop who comes into contact with it and sends it to 29 Palms (hence, the name). But it's not the right bag when he picks it up.Davies comes into contact with a waitress (Cook) out on the highway and I never did find out how she came into contact with it. In my mind, this story drifted all over the place. About the time the film focuses on one person, a set of flashbacks drift it to someone else. And to top it off, the photography was poor, also. In one shot, people are yelling because someone gets shot (can't give the rest of it away), but you don't see the shooting taking place. No sounds, just a bunch of swearing all of a sudden because of a little fire the bullet started. Funny what a bag of money will do to people, huh?As I said, there is no reality to this film. We all know what we would do if we had that kind of money, but the real question in all of us is, "How far would we be willing to go to keep it?" Too many characters in this film trying to be the main focus of the film is, in my mind, its downfall (and it keeps falling from there).