The Immortals (1995)

the audience applauded

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The main problem is it's not over the top in the needed direction. It's a movie made of several, disparate attempts. I'll put it this way:if The Immortals (1995) is unsatisfying, it is nevertheless interesting and,in an odd way, ambitious. It seems to set itself up for something. The things get rather phony sometimes in this movie—because it is badly written and it looks like they didn't receive the whole script, but only parts of it. The premise is also unacceptable—Roberts didn't need sick ,terminally ill people for his plan—it's not like it was all that motivating. In a word, The Immortals (1995) is an action drama badly written, but ambitious and unconventional. With the exception of Roberts himself, the cast is made of third—hand actors. (No offense of course to old Curtis, but his role is strictly ornamental.) This film is sometimes a grim comedy, and sometimes an action drama. The idea was good, the literary means were poor. The movie needed a script and a style. Even the gore and violence are badly managed.With a totally uninspired and useless director, The Immortals is still interesting and thrilling. The pace is good.Making an action drama with many characters (at least ten, in this case: Roberts, the eight lowlifes and Curtis) is a good thing. Then you have, of course, to be somehow able to manage these many characters. The Immortals (1995) deserved a better and more skilled writer. As it is, it's very heterogeneous in a way that seems sloppy and clumsy. It also needed a Cimino as a director—to give the movie a form. On the other hand,if this film could of been better, it's anyway good that it was made. It suffers from a complete lack of style; but it is interesting for Roberts _completists or simply for anyone who would like to have an unconventional, above the average film.

Enter Eric Roberts (American Strays, Purgatory, The Grave) a manager of a mobster owned (Curtis) high-rise hotel and eloquent casino. He arranges eight individuals, all unknown to each other to rob the other four casinos that also belonging to Curtis. Pairing them off, he sends them out with similar masks at the precise time of casino collections. Thus begins ninety minutes bloody shoot outs, humor and an interesting plot that catches the viewer off guard at the end. Chris Rock and Tia Carrere make an interesting team. Forsythe is superb as he lies shot and bleeding profusely and decides, `This is as good as time as any to take that last hit of acid I was saving.' As the plot thickens, they all realize they have more in common than just being robbers. To say anymore would give it away as that movie dude did with `The Crying Game.' And we don't want that, do we? On a scale of One to Five, I would give it three and half stars purely on the fact I think Roberts and Forsythe are great actors. But as the critic I'm not (laugh Barb) I'd probably give it four.

On the outside "The Immortals" just looks like another in a long line of standard heist thrillers, with the only difference being that this one's probably much more violent. But as the story starts developing we find out that all these characters aren't your stereotypical 'I want money' robbers, they're all doing it out of necessity. Thats the very unexpected and unusual twist in this very violent movie. The plot isn't extremely complicated. It's about a nightclub owner, Jack(Eric Roberts who shows why all his movies lately have been direct-to-video) who picks 8 people(Tia Carrere, Chris Rock, Joe Pantoliano, Clarence Williams III, William Forsythe, Keiran Mulroney, writer Kevin Bernhardt and Brian Finney), all with terminal illnesses to rob a crimelord(Tony Curtis). But when they get betrayed it turns into an all-out battle for survival...and a very entertaining one at that. After the movie gets into its second act it turns into 'Predator' style game of who's next to die. But one thing that raises "The Immortals" above the average heist thriller is that the characters aren't stereotypes but real people. I actually cared for the characters when they died. While "The Immortals" won't win any Oscars, and won't make any critics top ten list, it's still an entertaining rental. 7/10

A surprisingly well-known and talented cast help to make this an unexpectedly enjoyable film. In particular, Roberts and Pantoliano are solid as usual, and Chris Rock has some funny moments, as you would probably expect. Things do slow down midway through the movie, but a wonderful plot twist breathes new life into the film towards the end. The ending scenes are all too typical, but by the final minutes, there had already been enough clever writing and creativity to keep me happy. Despite some slow spots and a routine finish, this is still a movie that is definitely worth a look.