Majorthebys
Charming and brutal
Glucedee
It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.
Seraherrera
The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
rightwingisevil
keaton did a very unconvincing and heartless performance in this absolutely rubbish movie. his wrinkled face didn't show any emotion during the whole set. he's acting was so unbelievably bad and almost looked like out of place in every scene of this movie. the screenplay was extremely bad too. every twist of the plot was awkward and contrite. an accounting inspector from new york to investigate the discrepancies of the investment of an European movie company? guy behind the french/monaco movie industries involved in human trafficking? local cops involved in all the dirty business? Russian mafia, police corruption, hit-man, hired assassin....blah, blah and blah. then the guy would suddenly become so interested in getting the poster signed by a male star whom he thought already dead? in order to make the stupidly awkward scenario go along, the guy refused a full case of $$$cash bribery and let it slide, the next day checked out earlier without any reason, but then he still could receive the poster that the female chief financial officer of the movie company in front the hotel check-in/check-out counter by someone so timely, yet the female chief financial officer didn't know that he already checked out of the hotel?? you tell me if this kinda scenario arrangement was logically enough. if you do, then what can i say?
TxMike
Michael Keaton is banker Martin Raikes. By his co-workers' descriptions, and by his own admission, he is a demanding boss and a thorough businessman. When his bank notices a rather large transfer of money, he decides to go himself to investigate, at a movie studio in Nice, France.When he gets there he meets Michael Caine, playing an actor, Jake Mellows. Jake has a gambling habit, often going into debt, but always figures his acting income will bail him out.Pretty French actress Judith Godrèche is Lela Forin, who works for the studio.Old Serbian actor Rade Serbedzija is a Russian Oleg Butraskaya running a not so legitimate business.These 4 main characters interact throughout the movie, and quickly Martin figures out the studio isn't really making a movie, but are a channel for laundering money from illegal operations, some of which involves kidnapping women and apparently selling them into sexual slavery. Plus, Martin gets very cleverly set up so that it looks like he murdered a key French official. What started out as an audit soon becomes Martin's scrambling for his life.I like Michael Keaton, he is an interesting actor who creates interesting roles. And, I really was mesmerized with Ms Godrèche, I love her accent when speaking English, plus she is nicely attractive. This movie is a bit better than its IMDb rating would indicate.SPOILERS: People who get close to the truth get murdered. They go after Martin but he is too smart. He has a teen daughter who lives in England with her mom and stepdad, and the bad guys kidnap her for ransom. But Martin outfoxes them and in the final scenes sets up a video camera sending a live streaming video to computers everywhere, showing the bad guys for what they are. He and Lela set up a production company, and seem destined for more.
manuel-pestalozzi
This is a well crafted albeit formulaic movie. I don't find much fault with it - a blinking corpse can't distract me (contrary to other reviewers, as it seems). Incidentally, irritation is a major factor in the story, the main character, an ultra pedantic controller from a global consultancy enterprise (frankly a great, contemporary creation and a good, convincing performance by Michael Keaton) represents just a little, irritating grain of sand in the international machinery of crime.The plot is the 39 steps, Saboteur, North by Northwest etc. all over. A wrongly accused and framed man on the run gets help from a beautiful woman and succeeds in turning the table on his pursuers. The grace, elegance and beauty of actress Judith Godrèche is a major asset of Quicksand. As far as the crime and the front for it are concerned, I found the movie credible. I assume in this aspect it relates to actuality more accurately than one might feel comfortable with. White slave trade from Eastern Europe is a new and unpleasant reality in Western Europe and probably in America as well. It happens in front of our doorsteps, so to speak. If Quicksand helps to bring this to mind, all the better.They had some excellent location scouts working on this movie. Almost the whole story evolves in and around the town of Nice and I found they caught the feel of this picture postcard place with its not so nice underbelly perfectly. There is a great assassination scene in the central district - and one will find references to Hitchcock's Nice-movie To Catch a Thief here and there. My favorite location is the small open air cinema high up above the coastline in the hills which serves as meeting place between Keaton and Godrèche. Who wouldn't like to be there when the projector starts rolling?
ianharvey777
Really, this movie is trash.The plot has more holes than Swiss cheese and the storyline is so lame I found myself laughing hysterically. I'm sorry, I could not suspend my disbelief for this one.My girlfriend rented it because she likes the two Mikes....I like 'em too but I swear they must have done this one for a tax write off or as a favour or to get out of some other contractual obligation.It was so bad I was looking at the credits to try and find out who funded it....it was so bad I thought it had to be a telefim Canada project or some other government body somewhere...which would explain the multi shooting units, Canada, US, Monaco and England.But no...someone put up good money for this bad display of cinematography. How it ended up like this is beyond me.I mean, there are some okay moments but it's like it was shot in another language and then translated....it just doesn't work.I got lost so many times as to what the story line was I gave up...and some of the linkages are so weak a six-year-old could have done better at show and tell.I'm not going to spoil it for anyone because I honestly can't bring myself to parrot the story line....with it's predictable ending.At one point though, I did think it was art imitating life imitating art, or was that life imitating art...never mind..the premise has something to do the illusion of movie making and how things aren't always as they appear to be, but it's done with such heavy handed direction and editing, it's a complete yawner.My advice? Unless you are a student of the form, stay away. If you are a student of the form, watch and learn what not to do.
