Botched (2007)

You won't be disappointed!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Sometimes you watch a film which doesn't really know what it is. You'll find the odd drama which sways heavily into comedy and then back again, leaving the viewers wondering what they're actually watching.'Botched' is indeed a 'multi-genre' film, however, it's dabblings in various genres does appear intentional. And, better still, it works.When I first heard about 'Botched' I thought it was about a bank robbery that goes wrong. The reason being that that's how it's billed. The promotional material doesn't really go on much from saying how a trio of thieves try to pull off a heist in Russia (with disastrous consequences). That makes it sound like a simple heist movie (or crime caper). However, what you may or may not know is that what transpires into everything from a slasher film to a madcap, tongue-in-cheek farce.The trio of bank robbers do indeed get more than they bargained for, but not from the authorities. The hostages they attempt to capture have more than a few skeletons in their closets, but even they pale in comparison to who's waiting for them on an abandoned floor of the building they're trying to escape from with the loot.It's hard to say who this film will appeal to, as it crosses so many genres. But, if you're generally into heads being severed and bodies being hung up and sliced at the waist (while at the same time trying not to laugh at the cheesiness of it all) you should be pleasantly surprised.Special mention to Geoff Bell who steals ever scene in his 'alpha male' persona.

Can't see how this could have been better; seen it twice and it just keeps growing on me.As the negative reviews show, not for everyone and, at first, thought it wasn't for me either. I surfed into it during a particularly gory scene that seemed totally senseless and pointless but kept watching and soon realized I was watching a live-action Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner/Pepe le Pew cartoon. Judged as such, it's very nearly perfect.There are tons and tons of antecedents, from Chaplin (the shoe eating scene in Goldrush) to 1000 Corpses, spanning the gauntlet of of genres (echos of Mildred Pierce and Johnny Belinda; Noir crime; Slasher movies, etc.) and yet unique and fresh to itself.The positive reviews cite chapter and verse to which I have little to add, or a lot to add relative to every precedent I've detected so far, but why get all pedantic? If you get it, this is a gem of a movie that makes roller-coaster movies like Speed look lame and Slasher movies lamer. Just plain fun to watch.

Botched is a victim of high expectations. It starts out so strongly that you can't help but be disappointed at how it finishes. If there wasn't such a stark difference between the beginning and the end, you could throw it on the same pile with a lot of other horror comedies as another niche entry in a niche genre for a niche audience. But because the opening offers the possibility to be so much more than that, you can't help but be a little more disappointed when it doesn't.Ritchie (Stephen Dorff) is an American thief with a debt to pay to a Russian gangster (Sean Pertwee). After a diamond heist goes wrong and leaves Ritchie empty handed, he's given one more chance to make good. He's ordered to steal a golden cross from the penthouse home of a wealthy Moscow family. Teamed up with a couple of local thugs, Ritchie nabs the cross. But on the elevator ride back down, a bunch of civilians crowd in with the three criminals and then the elevator stops at what appears to be a floor of the building that's undergoing renovations. Thinking it's the cops, Ritchie and the thugs take the others hostage in hopes of negotiating their way out of this mess. But when Ritchie offers to let one of the hostages go as a show of good faith and the "cops" cut off the hostage's head with a big pair of scissors, it's pretty clear the world of normal crime has been left far behind. Now facing brutal death and surrounded by comic relief, Ritchie has to somehow get himself and the cross to safety.I can't praise the start of Botched enough. It not only doesn't let on you're watching a horror film right away, it's thoroughly convincing as the opening to a completely different sort of story. This movie not only looks and feels like a crime thriller at the beginning, it looks and feels like a reasonably clever one. By having the opening robbery foiled by pure bad luck and then giving Ritchie "one more chance" to make things right, it even suggests how the rest of the film is going to go. And I can imagine that setting things up like that only to take a hard left turn at Albuquerque into horror comedy seemed like a brilliant idea. It wasn't.The problem is that Ritchie and one of the civilians (Jaime Murray) who becomes his sort-of love interest are played relatively seriously through the whole thing, while everything and everyone else gets played for laughs. Well, played for the sort of laughs you get in a horror comedy. The victims are supposed to be funny, the killer is supposed to be funny, the murder and dismemberment is supposed to be funny, the whole situation is an outright attempt at dark comedy with very little drama at all. But Stephen Dorff as Ritchie doesn't reflect any of that. It's like he's in a different movie, which isn't a good thing when you're talking about the main character.Probably the best thing about Botched is Jaime Foreman as Peter, one of the Russian thugs teamed up with Ritchie. He's almost like a character from one of the Grand Theft Auto video games come to life and his violent and crude personality is broad enough to blend in when things veer off into the grotesque and absurd. Probably the worst thing about Botched is Geoff Bell as Boris, a security guard character that these filmmakers obviously thought highly of since they give him a lot of screen time. Unfortunately, they never quite figured out exactly who Boris was supposed to be. It's never clear when or whether the character is being honest, putting on a show for others or lying to himself about who he is.I'm not sure if Botched could have been salvaged. I suspect it's one of those ideas that are great in theory but never work out in practice. If you're a horror comedy fan, you might like it. Outside that niche, it won't have much appeal.

I gave this movie a 1. Only Because that's as Low as the scale would go. If I could I would have given it a -10. It started out fine and then took a turn for the Worst quickly and it was ALL Downhill from there. I recognized Two actresses from their other work. Jamie Murrey and Bronagh Gallagher I can only determine that whatever Stephen did , they also did. Or maybe someone has Pictures of them doing Unspeakable things that they were afraid would be leaked to the Internet so this is their Blackmail Payment. I rented this movie because of the Tag Line I read on the DVD. I also think Stephen Dorff was Great in Blade. He seems to be a pretty good actor so one has to wonder how he got talked into this fiasco. i understand the Other actors incentive. they need the work. But Stephen?? What were you Smoking??? And Please don't tell me this film is anything else but Bad Bad Bad Movie-making. The Plot, Acting, Special effects....EVERYTHING ...were so below what a B movie is that even a Bad B movie was more fun to watch than this. It was a Horror picture alright. A Horror to watch..