Proximity (2001)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Fresh and Exciting

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

I saw this alleged B-level movie on a sleepless night. Although these conditions hardly qualify to say that a movie caught your attention because it was so good, I must admit I found it very intriguing, not because of its quality, but because of half its quality. I'll explain.The strange thing about this movie is that it appears to be made in two stages, clearly distinct in cinematography, script and acting. I'm not saying it was, but it would explain why these two parts are so different.In the "background part", the mechanics of the Justice For Victims movement are displayed, with victims and relatives lamenting the abstracted judicial system which is too lenient on perpetrators and does not care about the victims' justice. The movement's chief sets up an alternative circuit, where perpetrators are killed or "sentenced to death" so to speak, paying the killers with money financed by the victims, while some of it sticks to the hands of the movement's chief and the corrupt prison manager. This whole idea of restoring the old "eye for an eye" has been crafted very well, with sublime acting by the victims in an almost documentary fashion, and the intense characterization of the chief, whose motives are revenge, money, power and some true sense of justice altogether. It installs a double bind with the viewer, who sympathizes with the victims but struggles with the morals of revenge outside law.The "foreground part" however, starring Rob Lowe, is your way below average stupid "escape, run and get shot at" B-movie, with only a handful of villain guards and a mole inmate running and shooting about, complete with a romantic happy end, pulling the movie away from reality entirely.I could not help but feel that this movie was initially based on a sublime script, when half way some box office oriented but lame producer entered the scene, replaced the story writers with cheap off-shore scenarists and added a bunch of stars to turn it into an easy going action movie. It must have gone like that. How else to explain the discrepancy between the two parts?

That is the only thing I can positive to say about this movie. Cleveland is the star, I've been there and never saw the city look this good. Beautiful river and cityscapes.This movie moves ahead at such a pace they hope you won't notice the lack of real world relevance. People running around and shooting guns without any consequence. For example, there is a shoot out at Rob Lowe's character's house- two cars are stolen, and yet the cops don't show up there till much later in the movie. Murder for hire never looked so implausible.Whoever wrote this movie should be on the receiving end of one the movies countless stray bullets. Many of the actors in this movie are so much better than this. I check the date of the movie just to make sure it wasn't written during the writers strike but alas this was not the case. This movie is currently in rotation on Universal's HD channel- unless you want to drool of over Lowe there is no reason to watch it.

Former brat pack actor and all round pretty boy Rob Lowe stars in a film set in a high security American prison . I had a gut feeling his character was going to be popular for all the wrong reasons like Tobias in the first series of OZ , but PROXIMITY isn`t that kind of film , it`s more like a " Man on the run " film like THE FUGITIVE . It also makes a nod to the themes of punishment and justice with James Coburn putting in a cameo as the spokesman for a justice for victims pressure group but any intelligent discussion on how society should treat criminals is completely ignored as the film degenerates into tired old cliches of shoot outs and car chases

"Proximity" tells of a convict (Lowe) who thinks the prison staff is out to kill him. This very ordinary film is an action/drama with a weak plot; stereotypical, poorly developed characters; and a one dimensional performance by Lowe. A forgettable film not worthy of further commentary.