leplatypus I expected to watch a movie about a winter holidays vacations and it turns up it's rather a black comedy in which a husband, Robin, tries to scam his insurance officer, Ribisi, to help his disturbed wife, Holly. Honestly, it will not be remembered as a classic for each of them and the movie is sometimes sluggish and dull ! For a funniest cumbersome corpse movie, you should take a look at the old french one « Joe » that shares a lot of situations. But this one has fantastic outdoors, up in this Northen Alaska town really covered by snow, and for one time, not destroyed by the common color grading ! Robin is good as this little crook with a heart as well as Holly who proves one more time her dynamic and crazy side ! Ribisi, whom i watched recently in "the gift" confirms he is a young talent much more convincing than the ones you always heard of (ex : Rockwell). The psychic girl was charming and i was sure to have seen her before : it's only now that i catch that she stars in Tim Burton's « Bigfish » indeed !

anthonyjlangford It makes you wonder how on earth they gathered the cast for this. I suppose the big budget meant they got paid well, so perhaps the question is, how the hell did they get the money? The script is terrible. The ideas are non too subtle rehashes of other films, too obvious to mention, yet the humor simply isn't there. Even Robin Williams can't save it, nor himself, as he really doesn't have enough to work with. Ribisi is quite good and what ever happened to Alison Lohman? She's not great in this but she's quite likable.There are a couple of semi-decent sight gags, such as the eye popping corpse but its all rather juvenile. Holly Hunter turns in the only decent performance but eventually she becomes annoying as well. Harrelson is completely wasted. Literally.There's a reason most people haven't heard of this film. It's an embarrassment for all involved.

Roedy Green The theme of this movie is that people can't help but revert to being caring and polite. It is quite sweet to watch even abductors and abductees treating each other with kindness, simply because they forget themselves and act instinctively. A typical joke of this form was the kidnapper preparing a gourmet meal for his victim, and fussing over whether she enjoyed it.It is not the wild crazy comedy you would expect of Robin Williams. It is more the nightmare of how a small crime is forced to escalate.There is a lot of quite grisly violence. People do it without thinking, then later think better of it.The Holly Hunter character is a complete original. She is a bit nuts, but very pleasant.Even the young ditzy phony telephone psychic loves her clients, and gives them quite reasonable advice.It does not tie up loose ends. You are always guessing why people are doing what they are. There is no Agatha Christie ending to explain it all.

bernie-122 Some day the minders of this board will finally deal with the ludicrous -esque problem, where -esquire is forcibly substituted unless you type -e s q u e. If you leave a space in front it sometimes leaves it alone, as it did above, but then the construction is wrong. It annoys the sh!t out of me. (You can't say the proper word for poo, either.) On to the film:I wasn't expecting too much, as Robin Williams isn't really my cup of tea; fortunately, he wasn't trying to be funny (which he never is) and wasn't too schmaltzy, either, so it worked OK.For me, Holly Hunter really stole the show. Knowing that people with Tourette's don't really behave that way didn't take anything away from her hilarious outbursts. I especially liked when she was paying the paperboy ("Say hi to your slut mom for me")Comparisons to Fargo are only valid superficially, but there can be no doubt that the writer has seen more than one Coen Bros film. This one does the same sort of genre-straddling that a lot of theirs do.The only thing that made me not give it one more star was that the ending was flat and unsatisfying, as though the makers really couldn't figure out how to finish it.