Made Men (1999)

Captivating movie !

As Good As It Gets

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

In the small town Harmony in the countryside, Bill Manucci (James Belushi) is hunted down by hit men and he asks his wife Debra (Vanessa Angel) to travel to Los Angeles. Bill is under the witness protection program after betraying the powerful mobster Skipper. Out of the blue, the criminals Miles (Michael Beach), Royce (Jamie Harris) and Nick (David O'Donnell) come from Chicago and break in his house. They torture Bill to find where the money that he stole from their boss is. Bill does not tell and they drive him back to Chicago in a van to meet Skipper. When they stop in a gas station, they stumble upon the redneck Sheriff Dex Drier (Timothy Dalton) that asks his Deputy Conley (Tim Kelleher) to follow their van. Along their journey, the gangsters learn that Bill stole twelve million dollars from Skipper. Bill succeeds to escape from them but the owner of a drug laboratory Kyle (Steve Railsback) and his men abduct him. There is a clash between the gangs and Bill escapes again. Miles finds him and discloses that he is an undercover FBI agent that wants the money to arrest Skipper. But they are hunted down by Kyle and his gang and also by the sheriff. Will they succeed to escape? "Made Men" is a film that combines action with comedy that does not work well. The director Louis Morneau unsuccessfully tries to imitate Guy Ritchie's style with a plot with many twists and betrayal. However the film entertains but is absolutely predictable with unfunny characters. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "Traição" ("Betrayal")

I have to say that I wasn't enjoying 'Made Men' for the first act. About the first half hour was pretty dull. James Belushi plays Bill 'The Mouth' Mannuci – an informant who's living under the 'witness protection scheme' in the deep south of America after he dropped his mob boss in it. However, his happy new life doesn't go as planned when his former associates track him down in the belief that he's still hanging on to millions of ill-gotten money.What follows is – effectively – the four gangsters constantly beating on him while they try and get the whereabouts of the money out of him. My initial reaction was 'how much punishment can one rather overweight kind of guy take?' And take it he does. Most people (in better physical condition) would probably have cracked (or died!) long ago, yet Belushi just keeps on coming back with one smart and defiant quip after the next. This kind of annoyed me, but then he's hardly a 'sympathetic' hero, so I guess his punishment fits his arrogance. Finally, they stop torturing him and take him on a road trip. Then things start getting a little better.What starts off pretty dull changes into a kind of action/chase movie as he Belushi does his best to evade and escape his captors. It's hardly intellectual stuff, but there are plenty of pretty cool shoot-outs and car chases to keep us 'mindless males' entertained. The plot gets a little better as more characters are introduced – all of which are completely amoral and only interested in whether they can get their hands on Belushi's alleged loot.Timothy Dalton is good as the Sheriff, but what he brings to the film, the 'generic British guy' who's somehow been thrown in there as part of the gang seems totally over the top and in the wrong film.Made Men will never be a classic, but that doesn't mean it's not fun. If you're looking for a 'no brainer' where you're not bothered about actually liking any of the characters, this one could be for you. It's one of those film that you'll probably find on the telly late at night and just stick with it. Probably one to watch first, but you may not bother buying it.

That's what the title should be, anyway.This movie combines guns, explosives, and mindless killing to make one flop of an "action" movie. Let me make my point in a series of questions: answers type deal.What happens in the movie? People die.Is that it? Yes.What is the plot about? What plot?What is the point the movie is trying to make? Killing is the only solution.What are the characters like? Extremely flawed and contradictive toward their own personalities.Is there anything good about this movie? Yes. I'm sure they used some nice Panavision cameras in filming it.If you like constant killing and greed, then watch the movie. If you happen to be repulsed by such low-standard "entertainment", then "Made Men" is not for you.To sum it up, the plotline stinks, the characters aren't worth their while, the storyline is completely resistable, and nothing fits together.This proves one thing: the actors, directors, and whoever helped make this movie certainly aren't "Made".

"Made Men" is the kind of flick where the shoot-outs expend more ammunition than the shooters could carry. It's the kind of flick where an auto gas tank explodes like a case of dynamite, not 10 gallons of gasoline. It's the kind of flick where a Brit plays a red-neck sheriff with both accents prevalent in his speech. It's the kind of flick where a guy pulls a gun which hasn't been fired and there's smoke coming from the muzzle. It's the kind of flick you'll want to miss unless you're 14 and male.