Sam Panico Adapting Stephen King isn't always easy. There are folks that have done it well and others that have really done a horrible job. Few folks get multiple chances, but one of them is Tom Holland (Fright Night, Child's Play, Psycho 2), who made this and The Langoliers.Unlike most movies, there is not a single person that you'll truly like or get behind here. It's a mean-spirited tale about some mean-spirited people. It's a lot like life, I guess. And yes, I realize that this is a Richard Bachman book, but just about everyone knows that that is really King by now (see our review of The Running Man for more).Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke, who took over the role of RoboCop in the third installment) plays a corpulent lawyer who defends just about anyone, including Richie "The Hammer" Ginelli (Joe Mantegna, Joey Zaza himself). There's a ton of practical appliance makeup here to transform Burke into the various stages of Halleck's weight loss.After celebrating getting the mobster acquitted in his case, he rides home with his wife Heidi (Lucinda Jenney, The Mothman Prophecies). She chides him for eating so much and says that he should be obsessed with better things, like sex. As she goes down on him while he drives, he slams directly into an elderly gypsy woman.Billy knows how to play the system, with the police lying on the stand for him and Judge Rossington taking care of his case. Long story short, he isn't punished.As he leaves the courtroom, the 106-year-old gypsy patriarch, Tadzu Lempke (Michael Constantine, who also played Windex-loving Kostas "Gus" Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which is kind of ironic) touches his face and says, "Thinner." Soon, he's losing so much weight that he needs all new clothes.Fearing he has cancer, his wife sends him to Dr. Houston. Billy hates Houston, as he's convinced his wife is having an affair with him. They - and a later clinic - can find no scientific reason why he's losing the weight.He's not the only one dealing with a curse. Judge Cary was cursed with the word "lizard" and he's now turning into one. And the police chief who lied on the stand is becoming a leper.Billy tries to get the gypsies to remove his curse, but they only increase it. And Galina (Kari Wuhrer from TV's Remote Control), Lempke's great-granddaughter, shoots him through the hand with a slingshot. He vows that he will bring the white man's curse down on all of them.This instigates a war between the mob forces that Billy has defended and the gypsies, with dogs poisoned, men killed, fake acid thrown in faces, kidnappings and more.Yet Billy can barely even walk, as the curse has reached its final stages. In an attempt to end the violence, Lempke agrees to remove it and mixes Billy's blood into a strawberry pie that he must get someone else to eat, as the curse must be transferred. Billy takes the pie to his wife, who eats a slice and dies a husk of a person. But he ignored the old man's warnings, as he wanted Billy to just eat it himself so he could die clean. Now, Billy's daughter has also had some, so he's doomed her. But at least he gets to take out the doctor he hates by offering him a slice.This is a quick moving, down and dirty film. It's a perfect Sunday afternoon cable film - do people still do that? I do.

sddavis63 The makeup is great. No one can deny that. It's impressive watching Robert John Burke's transformation from morbidly obese to painfully thin. The various makeup effects on the other affected characters are also impressive. So if you watch a movie for the makeup - don't miss this one. The problem is that few if any people watch a movie for the makeup. We watch for the story; the performances. On those scores, "Thinner" disappoints. It's based on a Stephen King story. I've seen a few film adaptations of King stories. Some are good, some not so much. This is included in the latter group.Burke plays an obese lawyer named Billy Halleck who accidentally kills a gypsy woman in a traffic accident, and her father takes revenge by placing a gypsy curse on him that causes him to lose weight rapidly. At first it seems fine. He's been trying unsuccessfully to lose weight, and now he is. But it quickly becomes clear that something is wrong. He eats and eats and eats more than he ever did - and he still loses weight. His relationship with his wife and daughter suffer and he becomes desperate to find the gypsy who put the curse on him so that he can convince him (either by begging or by force) to remove it.But this movie lacks spark. At times it's silly (yeah - it's about a gypsy curse, so what would you expect?) But overall it just didn't connect with me. The cast isn't especially well known. The best known cast members are Michael Constantine as the gypsy man and Joe Mantegna as a mobster who helps Billy do battle with the gypsies. The performances aren't bad - but they're outshone by the makeup. I also found the ending kind of disappointing. But there's still the makeup! Can't beat the makeup! (4/10)

Mike LeMar Bad acting and story line; I guaranteed my mom that Stephen King didn't do the screenplay for this, like he's done for others, as I went to look it up...and what'd'ya know. The sexy young gypsy girl dances sexily for Billy early on, flashing him, then flips him off, SPITS at him, and walks away. And this is before he even runs over the elder gypsy woman crossing the street. If I were him in that scene, I'd be like, "I'm lost... Come again?" She later explains her anger to him when he visits their campsite that "You white folk never SEE us. You're always wrapped up in yourselves." Excuse me but Billy looked over at their group from across the way at the beginning and even asked a co-worker about them. What does she mean they never SEE them? Billy contradicts himself from scene to scene, like his reaction to his daughter's concern about his weight loss that there's nothing to be concerned about it because he's finally found a diet that works, only to hurl his plate later on at the wall and get irritated with his wife that he's being erased, like she just doesn't seem to grasp that. The book does a much better explaining why Billy's angry at his wife and feeds her the pie at the end. The movie doesn't explain that at all; it just comes out of nowhere.

Leofwine_draca As Stephen King adaptations go, this is a fair attempt at what I found to be one of King's most disturbing novels. The idea of your own body gradually changing for the worse, and you not being able to do a damn thing about it, is a particularly horrifying one and one which translates well to the big screen. Okay, so the acting isn't that great, but it's the clever storyline which carries this film through from the start to the finish and it works.What I like most about King's novels - and filmed works - is the theme of gradual transformation, or decay. In SALEM'S LOT and NEEDFUL THINGS it's the community which is slowly taken over, while in CHRISTINE - and indeed, THINNER - it's the individual who becomes taken over by evil. This film works due to some very good special effects work which sees Burke transform from a 297 pound monstrosity to a human skeleton, with skin stretched taught over his thin frame. Due to the excellent nature of the effects, this transformation is always 100% believable, which is lucky really as it carries the whole film along.There's a slow tension which burns in the background here, a feeling of unstoppable damnation which follows Burke whenever he's on screen. Obviously the revelations at the end don't live up to the audience expectations, but the build-up is very suspenseful. The acting is not brilliant, but good enough for this kind of mainstream film, with Joe Mantegna stealing the show as a cruel, heartless gangster type. His role would be a godsend for any actor, giving them a chance to be extremely vicious in a fun way. Lucinda Jenney is also effective as Burke's leech-like, two-timing wife. Burke himself is hardly convincing, but he manages to convey that harassed/frightened/disturbed look pretty well.Although not gory, there are some gruesome moments involving various dismembered or desiccated corpses which pop up every now and then for that shock moment. The one I liked best was a man who had been deformed with a chicken or something - pretty disgusting. There's another good moment where Burke is shot through the palm with a ball bearing, giving the producers a chance to use a perforated hand special effect, much the same as the one in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. Some out of place action turns up to keep the wheels turning, along with a voluptuous and glamorous gypsy girl (there just aren't enough of these in films these days). The twist ending is a fun one, and there are plenty of things to enjoy here if you don't mind a bit of light entertainment. This is a film which is difficult to take seriously, but a lot of fun.