dobandray Take a heavy drinking, down on his luck, chain smoking private eye, who lives in his office and the reminds you is who? I'll give you a hint, there was an annoying cartoon rabbit named Roger in it. That's right Eddie in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" which was a significantly better movie. In this disaster we have Charlie who talks fast, has the fat, greasy, and bald cop as a frenemy, and too many hot girls he's not getting any tail from. He wears Hawaiian shirts with ties, and blackmails his stings into buying the pictures the wife already paid a certain amount for to prevent her from seeing them.. He uses a stripper who ends up disappearing on a sting with some old as dirt scientist who is some genius as smart as Einstein, but is dealing with Tesla. Now add in Robert Vaughn (The "Original" Man from U.N.C.L.E) as this scientist 85 year old neighbour who will fight Charlie while wearing a collared shirt, tie, his boxers and lederhosen. Then add Matthew Broderick as the wealthy but stupid, worst bad guy who has some sexual game he plays with his hot as the sun sister. The add this scientist's assistant who is apparently smarter than he is (whatever happened to Igor) and you get.. but wait.. Let's take yet another professor who was being blackmailed by Charlie and make him Charlie's friend who helps him evade bad guys. Let's take Jeanine Garafalo as a faster talking FBI agent , or is she? Add the Serbian version of the FBI (at some point not long ago was known as the KGB) and to top it off.. a billionaire daredevil who has designed what has nothing do with the plot but everything to do with the title of the movie and you find out what "The American Side" really is. It is something I'd prefer a root canal over then watching this.

gjosiban-51201 In order for the American Side to work, even a little bit, it's essential that you know nothing about Tesla, the man who developed alternating current. Because if you know of him, you'd know that he had no such dream of creating the mcguffin that drives the movie. Because the premise is ridiculous, the lengths to which various individuals and groups go to acquire the plans is simply not believable. But this movie has other shortcomings besides. To advance the plot, the protagonist, a down-in-the-mouth gumshoe who drives a Dodge Dart, is given entree to daytime cocktail parties and evening soirees where he is able to chat up the rich who for some reason feed him bits and snatches of what they're up to instead of simply calling the cops and having the guy thrown out. The movie is also replete with coincidences and characters whose function is to provide knowledge so as to advance the mystery, but whose fortuitous appearance stretches credulity. For example, the boat owner who hired our hero early in the film and to whom our hero returns in one of his hours of need just happens to teach physics and knows all about Tesla. There's more, but it's just too silly.

Knight Hawk There are two things going for this movie.1) Film noir tropes. If you like that sort of thing. 2) Shots of Buffalo. If you're from Buffalo, like Buffalo and don't feel like going outside, maybe you will enjoy this.I almost added the Tesla history to the list. I love Tesla and this played a role in my decision to see the film. Unfortunately, the movie became so fanatically ludicrous over Tesla I'd rather they left him out completely.The movie is otherwise awful. Painfully obvious is that the movie is essentially various characters walking up to Greg Stuhr and saying their lines to advance the plot. In this aspect it's just like an elementary school play, only with Matthew Broderick instead of your six year old. The plot makes less and less sense as the movie plays out and becomes increasingly hostile to common sense and logic. Much of the movie flits around to various locations in Buffalo for absolutely no rhyme or reason except to squeeze in as many Buffalo shots as possible. There is no exposition and no character development. Not a single character receives any real treatment during the film. At the end, the only names I could recall were of the lead actor and Nikola Tesla, who wasn't even in the movie.Overall, it's the type of product you might see from a film student who was only admitted to film school because someone on the admissions committee was snorting coke. Fun Fact: Actress playing government agent was The Bowler in Mystery Men.

Mark Turner The genre known as "film noir" is probably as popular now as when it reached it's heyday in the 40s and 50s. Described as films that were "marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, and menace" the genre was best represented by films like DOUBLE INDEMNITY, THE THIRD MAN and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. It almost always had a flawed hero who more often than not ran afoul of the law and in some instances lost not only the girl but his life as well. Attempts have been made to replicate the genre, some good and some bad. THE American SIDE does a good job covering the style but at times gets too confusing for its own good.Charlie Paczynski (Greg Stuhr who also helped write the screenplay), is a private eye in the Niagara Falls area who makes a living helping set up the spouses of his clients and then taking pictures he can use to blackmail them with. While never stated you get the impression this wasn't always the way but what he has turned to in an effort to make a living now. With regular assistant Kat, a dancer at a local gentleman's club, he gets the pictures he needs with ease. Until one night when he hears gunshots and sees the car she was in disappear.Charlie then begins a search for Kat trying to find out what happened to her. As he does so he finds himself drawn into more than he bargained for. As he begins his search he's hired by a woman named Nikki Meeker to find a missing person. Following leads from Kat's last meeting he tracks down Tom Soberin (Harris Yulin), the man she was with only to find that the man is the missing person he was looking for. A brief meeting at the falls and minutes later Soberin is found dead.Things get even more complicated when Charlie is approached by a young woman in a dark alley for help who claims to be Nikki Meeker. As if this weren't confusing enough Charlie soon finds himself talking to a reclusive millionaire business partner (Robert Forster) who knew Soberin, a brother and sister pair (Matthew Broderick and Camilla Belle) who were his partners and interested in Soberin as well, learns more about what is really going on from the real Nikki Meeker and is approached by a strange government agent with ties to DARPA.All of it revolves around a discovery made by Nikolas Tesla decades in the past, a discovery worth killing for. It seems that when Tesla died the FBI swept into his home and took away all of his documents and work that was left. With the exception of a missing notebook. Now a single page from that notebook is the main focus of every character in the movie. But all Charlie wants to do is find justice for Kat and stay alive at the same time.Confused? Actually what you've read so far will make things clearer for you if you watch the movie. While watching it if you deviate from the film for just a moment odds are you'll find yourself scratching your head wondering what happened and what is going on. Even odder is that while you'll find yourself lost more than once in this movie it won't make a difference. It still offers an entertaining film that is well made and gives you more story than any ten multi-million dollar films from the Hollywood factory. When it was over I found myself wondering what I had just watched while at the same time thinking maybe I'd like to watch it again.The number of cameos in the film makes you believe that the actors involved at least thought they were making something good. In addition to those mentioned Robert Vaughan makes a brief appearance as Soberin's neighbor and MURPHY BROWN's Grant Shaud is a victim of Charlie's that happens to be a scholar of all things Tesla whose help is quite handy. Then again maybe the names are bigger to me than many young people will recognize today. Stuhr does a great job in the lead, at times reminding me of films made by Burt Reynolds when he was much younger.If you're willing to take the time to watch and pay attention this movie mystery may be right up your alley. But don't watch it while doing laundry, while the kids are running around the room screaming at each other or while painting your toenails. You have to stick with it. If you do you might find yourself enjoying the film and rediscovering a genre that isn't replicated well very often.