Noah Bristol Ezell Church I usually watch movies based on their high IMDb scores, but movies like "The Bag Man" are why I sometimes dip down into the 5's and 6's. At first I was surprised to see so many reviewers call it "boring", "bad" and "nonsensical", but then I realized that this film just isn't for everybody, but for some--like me--it's riveting. Almost the entire movie takes place during one night at a roadside hotel, where our protagonist, a contract killer (Cusack), is meant to go with a package and wait for pickup. Only everything and everyone around him seem to be set against him. The characters he meets and adventures he has there are fascinating, quirky, and surreal. The best way I can describe it is as a mix between "Identity", "Mulholland Dr.", and The Book of Genesis.I think this movie has gotten so many bad reviews because it doesn't fit the mold. It defies expectations, and some people won't like that. But if you're looking for something different, something that can surprise you, watch "The Bag Man". And try to vanquish your expectations.Special props to Crispin Glover for portraying the hilariously strange Ned. My favorite character!

leonblackwood Review: This movie starts off intriguing but then it goes downhill once Jack (John Cusack), reaches the hotel, where most of the film is based. Its about a hit-man whose asked by his crime boss to collect a bag and bring it back to him. All of the instructions are straight forward but he's not allowed to look in the bag, no matter what. Whilst waiting in a hotel for the collectors to get the bag, a bunch of random events makes the whole transaction harder than he thought. On top of that, a girl ends up in Jacks hotel room because she is trying to escape from her pimps. Once Jack has fort of the crooked cops and a couple of criminals, with the girl by his side, he then meets up with his crime boss to exchange the bag for loads of money but all is not what it seems. I was actually enjoying the movie before all the random events started to happen. I liked Cusack and DeNiro's character but the girl spoilt it because she distracted Cusack from the whole mission. I also thought that the storyline got out of hand after a while but when the story unfolds at the end, it actually made a lot of sense. By that time I had lost interest in the movie so I really wasn't that bothered about how the film was going to pan out. Anyway, the performances were average from Cusack and DeNiro and the script really wasn't that great. DeNiro wouldn't stop waffling on about rubbish, which got on my nerves after a while and I really didn't understand why Cusack just didn't open the bag when he first got it. At the end of the day, it was just a bad day at the office for these two veteran actors and I'm not surprised that this film went straight to DVD. Not that great!Round-Up: At one point in DeNiro's career, you would have never imagined his movies going straight to DVD but now it really isn't a surprise. I didn't understand why he had that awful wig and weird nose extinction in this film either! Anyway, this is the first movie directed by David Grovic who also produced the awful Dying of the Light with Nicolas Cage. Basically, its the second time that he had the chance to make a movie with some decent actors and he's made a right mess of it. There's a couple of twists near the end of this film which would have made the movie quite clever if the middle wasn't so sketchy. Anyway, I'm obviously not alone by saying that this movie really wasn't that great, judging by the movies takings but I really doubt that it will damage Cusack or DeNiro's reputation.Budget: N/A Worldwide Gross: $462,000 (Terrible!)I recommend this movie to people who are into their crime/drama/thrillers about a hit-man who has to collect a bag for his crime boss but he's not allowed to look in the bag, regardless of the circumstances. 3/10

betty_bech It's a good movie…there I wrote that. I just re-watched it to relive the experience but it is better the first time as some scenes are utterly surreal when you don't expect it. I would not be surprised if that movie would become a cult movie in the future.It's not like a big entertaining Hollywood movie like Titanic, those kinds of movies that happen once a year and I got motion sickness and needed to barf into my popcorn bag when the ship plunged into the ocean…great special effects only appreciable on a big theater movie screen.When I saw Earthquake (1974) as a teen, unbeknownst to people, the movie theater seats were rigged to shake when the earthquake in the movie would suddenly hit… Some people started screaming as Paris is not California and we have zero experience with earthquakes. That experiment was short lived as they were talking about enhancing the movie experience with smells and nobody wanted to see a corpse on the screen and smell decomposed flesh.Paris is the worldwide capital in movie experience in theaters. You get movies from all over the world. Last count I read was 620 theaters for anybody counting them. Most small movie theaters offer festivals about a particular actress/actor or a director so you can see John Wayne movies or the Marylyn Monroe ones or all the Hitchcock movies. You can buy L'Officiel des Spectacles, a small weekly magazine, a cultural guide for any cultural event in Paris and Ile-de-France (movies, theaters, concerts, festivals…) so you can find which theater will show up some particular movie that you want to see on a big screen, making note of the date and time…I re-saw The Misfits in a Champs-Elysées screen (I think it's the last movie both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe made together).In France, some movie theaters are neighborhood small ones with limited sitting but still having a big screen (and no food, drink or smoking). Some have one huge IMAX 3-D screen covering peripheral vision, like being under a dome-shaped planetarium.In The Bag Man, that Brazilian actress is utterly hilarious on some humor level that is not reachable by everybody, like peeling onion skins to get to the good part. She's dressed like a hooker and wearing super fake blue wig and then taking if off to show some fake blonde hair. Having super red lips that she does not seem to have the ability to close, huge big eyes full of pretend fear and sadness…she's a riot as you know she has no fear or sadness.De Niro, one of the best actors I would say, is utterly cast against type, like all the other actors, wearing ridiculous suits and super ugly glasses that are not even reading or glasses correcting vision…just there (real glasses makes your eyes smaller or bigger and you can see the break line on the side of the face). He's going over the top to play a stupid, ugly, mean character and he does a good job at it that will surely be unappreciated by the populace.Even John Cusack having the most dreamy, innocent eyes is wearing sunglasses on a private plane at night!! It's like "let's focus on the biggest asset of any actor and turn it upside down, smothering it". He plays a hit man just hired to retrieve a bag but of course, he'll kill a bunch of people who are after the bag too, for some reason and drive around with the clichéd dead body in the trunk and saying he's "Mr. Smith", short of being Mr. Incognito. Then you get squared jaws Dominic Purcell best known for playing the inmate Lincoln Burrows in Prison Break now playing the sheriff, verbally abusive (won't let you finish your sentence) and having physical stances (hands on the hips) to convey superiority and authority…it's a riot.Then you get Crispin Glover, the ultimate most intriguing cult-like actor, who can play both a madman and a genius. In The Bag Man, he's the motel clerk in a wheelchair but of course nobody is what they seem so don't be surprised if he stands up, you have to ring the bell to see him emerge from behind the desk, wondering what he's doing down there!!! His best line is "don't touch my wheelchair. You shouldn't have done that, Mr. Smith. No one touch my wheelchair. It belonged to my dead mother." It is very reminiscing about Psycho/Hitchcock and mother's issues and the Bates' motel.I won't say what it's in the bag as to avoid a spoiler but it's really a metaphor about trust that most people will not get anyway. What would be the Achilles' heel of a hit man? Would it be other people with a connection with love, family, friends, and kids? A loner hit man would be more reliable with no ties to anybody and not susceptible to blackmail and such. Then the story does a boomerang about revenge and if you severed my Achilles' heel, I'll kick you dead with my other heel.

Michael O'Keefe A touch of noir slips into this crime caper. A hit man named Jack(John Cusack)is summoned to a seedy motel deep in the Bayou by a dangerous crime boss named Dragna(Robert De Niro). Jack is offered a handsome compensation, but he must complete a slight chore of picking up a bag and wait in the Louisiana hotel. Jack is ordered to not open the bag. The hit man is hold up in room 13 and while waiting realizes that Dragna ordered a dozen more hired killers to do the same.A bit antsy, and you've already come to your own conclusion for a finale several times before closing credits. This movie runs about 1 hr. 49 min and Mr. De Niro is on screen almost 40 of those minutes. Who got their money's worth this time? Also in the cast: Crispin Glover, Rebecca Da Costa, Martin Klebba, Dominic Purcell, David Shambris and Kirk 'Sticky Fingaz' Jones.