Zero Patience (1994)

I love this movie so much

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Beautiful, moving film.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

'Zero Patience' is a low-budget musical about the Aids crisis that actually treats the subject intelligently yet manages to be fun, light-hearted and optimistic. The film is targeted for an audience of gay males (or, at least, people who enjoy watching male nudity) but I liked it anyway.The title is a wordplay on Patient Zero -- the gay man who allegedly brought Aids to North America -- and the fact that people hoping for an Aids cure are tired of waiting: they've got zero patience. Near the climax of the film, Sir Richard Burton performs the title song with his friends: "What's the time?" "Zero Hour." "How much patience?" "None." Earlier, another song (performed by the titular patient) has a chorus in French that translates as "I know, I know, I know that I don't know." This Richard Burton is not the Welsh actor but rather the 19th-century explorer and linguist, who (according to this movie) stumbled into the Fountain of Youth and is still alive. (Played by an actor who looks nothing like the historic Sir Richard Burton.) I expected this movie's dialogue to mention that the real Sir Richard had himself circumcised in adulthood so that he could pass for an Arab in order to visit Mecca.I never fault any movie for having a low budget, but I do get annoyed when low-budget filmmakers try to tell a story that really requires higher production values. In 'Zero Patience', one musical number is performed aboard an airliner in flight: but there are only four passengers and one stewardess (Dianne Heatherington), so the nearly-empty cabin -- a set that would have impressed me in its own right -- looks ridiculous. Ironically, if they'd filled the set with more actors, they could have got away with a cheaper set.Similarly, at this film's climax, Burton and his friends attempt a civil disobedience ... but the action really cries for a crowd of rebels, not the handful shown here.I was also annoyed that this movie is so deeply in Political Correctness territory. We're not supposed to use the phrase 'Aids cases' because it's demeaning. We can't say 'Aids victims' or 'Aids patients' because that's judgmental. For a while, the accepted phrase was 'people with Aids' (PWA) but even that became taboo. Now we're required to say 'persons living with Aids', abbreviated as PLWA. During the airliner sequence, Heatherington identifies her employer as 'PLWA Airlines'. If she had said 'PWA Airlines', this would have been a clever and funny pun on TWA, a real airline. But she had to weaken the pun for the sake of political correctness, changing it to PLWA. This is the same sort of stupidity that makes me look a racist if I say 'coloured people' but I get credit for being enlightened if I say 'people of colour'.The cast of 'Zero Patience' -- some of them quite talented, others less so -- seem a bit too impressed with their own alleged audacity. Still, it took some guts to tackle this particular subject in this particular way. My rating: 4 out of 10, and here's hoping that 'Zero Patience' will become a period piece when Aids is curable.

This is one crazy musical. AIDS the musical. It's so far from my usual taste in films...not that there is anything wrong with that...but just not my thing. USUALLY. But I had a friend who took me unaware and I found the music and strange visuals very appealing. I still get songs from the film stuck in my head out of the blue. It's amazingly catchy. And the characters are very sympathetic. I found myself really getting into something that I'd probably skip if I knew what it was about. I highly recommend this. Watch once to see how crazy it is. Then when you MUST hear the music again you'll find yourself seeking it out again. I would recommend you buying it since it's extremely hard to find the soundtrack or video. And not a sign of any DVD yet.

Zero Patience is provocative, engaging and indeed, an important film. It is an accessible way to be introduced to many issues regarding AIDS. However, this musical is never very engaging. The main fault of this is the music itself, which is dated and irking.The plot and characters of Zero Patience are involving enough. Too bad the rhythm of the film keeps getting interrupted by musical numbers that don't really seem to fit and are not very entertaining. These pieces fall flat in terms of conception and seem to want to be campier than they actually are.In summary: it's an important movie about AIDS that was sloppily conceived.

I always say that I don't have a favorite movie, but this is probably it. This is actually THE movie that made me fall in love with and get interested in all the following: movies, gay issues, AIDS issues, talented people (like John Greyson!). It's also the movie that brought me closest to believing in fate: I saw late one night when I was letting myself go to bed late for some reason, and the VCR just happened to be recording, and I really don't know why I didn't stop it, and it was by chance that the tape was long enough.... now if there is a destiny or anything like it, that's the closest there is to it! This movie is good, and so amazing, that I don't even know how I managed to write that stuff up there. Ignore all above. Just go watch this movie!!!