Johnny Skidmarks (1998)

I love this movie so much

Truly Dreadful Film

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

"Johnny Skidmarks" is uneven to the extreme. This sometimes black comedy, sometimes thriller, sometimes noir, sometimes violent movie, teeters on the edge of being either entertainment or nonsense. The plot is initially interesting. A police freelance photographer sidelines taking blackmail photographs of unsuspecting clients with a planted hooker. While completely disassociating himself from the victims, Peter Gallagher plays the role of the photographer very low key. Even more low key is his on again off again romance with Francis McDormand. Her role seems like it belongs in a different movie, and adds nothing to the already well stretched plot. In the end the wheels finally come off regarding John Lithgrow's good to bad transformation, and the concluding torture scene turns into one gigantic plot hole. - MERK

When I first heard of "Johnny Skidmarks", it sounded a little bit like "Crash" (David Cronenberg's movie, not the movie that won Best Picture a few years ago), only cruder. It turned out to be different. But still, while it's far from a terrible flick, this is not one that I would recommend. It's not because a certain scene made me squirm a little bit - I think that you know to which scene I refer - but I don't get the sense that the movie added anything new. My overall point is that there have been lots of good movies dealing with cars: "Christine" and both versions of "The Italian Job", for example. Therefore, I don't consider this one particularly worth seeing. Peter Gallagher, Frances McDormand, John Lithgow and Jack Black have done better.

This film wants to be a black comedy, but doesn't quite pull it off. It's like the director every now and then said "Oh yeah, it's a black comedy. Do something funny now". It just isn't consistent. Watch "Fargo" instead. I think Frances McDormand was trying to reprise her wonderful role in that film and picked this loser. And John Lithgow is capable of so much better. Not bad but very ordinary.

I enjoyed this movie. The characters were portrayed interestingly and the story moved along nicely. There were not many surprises, and some of the more gruesome scenes were stretched out longer than necessary. The main attraction was the quirkiness of the characters.