Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

BasicLogic This is a very messy scripted, messy directed so-called "Thriller" but got no thrill at all. When you watched it, you just saw R.M. played the Philip Marlowe character as a private detective did his P.I. business on British soil, fully dressed, just not in tuxedo. He just walked around until later involved in a gun fight. The two daughters of a retired American general were so ridiculously to watch, both duly a poor miscast job. There were so many names and characters involved in this messy film, just like the novel itself. R. Chandler's P.I. Philip Marlowe series although a classic, but it just feel dated and outdated by today's view point standard. Those murder cases were just like what those housewives turned mystery writers, especially the British and American female murder case mystery writers, who dreamed up those laughable murder cases one by one, their police inspectors also looked just laughable but still unbiasedly adapted and made into PBS "Masterpiece" dramas to entertain mucho TV viewers. I've tried to read those so many times but never could have finished one. These are just kitchen dining table writers to me. Chandler might be had so many female apprentices, I guess.

valdaquende-39713 Rating this film is a tough go. As a long-time fan of Chandler's stories, I appreciate and watch every film based upon them. Some are stunning; some are not. This one is in-between.First a word about Robert Mitchum. Watching him in 'Farewell My Lovely' (1975), I had to conclude that of all the portrayals of Philip Marlowe I have seen (by Humphrey Bogart, James Garner, Dick Powell, James Caan, Elliot Gould, Robert Montgomery, George Montgomery, Powers Boothe and several others), Robert Mitchum stands out as the most realistic Philip Marlowe of them all. Shop-worn, hard-bitten but with a kindly and chivalrous streak within; aging but still very vital and with a solid 'authority'(for want of a better term) in the role, Mitchum made as perfect a Philip Marlowe as has ever graced the screen - in 'Farewell My Lovely'.Unfortunately, in this film he probably won't impress you in this way but that is not his fault; it's the screenwriter's. Sadly, it was decided, for whatever reason, to transplant the story to England; a transplant that doesn't work very well. The gritty world in which Marlowe lives is not a very good fit for the English countryside and the locales and characters lack the film-noir geist that Chandler's world evokes: the crazy mixture of glitz and sleaze, glamour and grittiness that was post-prohibition Los Angeles.Nonetheless, this film has a number of redeeming qualities; the acting is quite good, the plot adheres to Chandler's story much more closely than the Bogart/Bacall version and the scenes, cinematography and direction are competent and entertaining.

Michael_Elliott Big Sleep, The (1978) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) is asked by General Sternwood (James Stewart) to track down a blackmailer who is using his daughters (Sarah Miles, Candy Clark) but after the blackmailer is found murdered the private detective finds a whole string of people who seem to be keeping one secret after another. THE BIG SLEEP certainly doesn't come close to the Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall film but at the same time it's somewhat unfair to judge the two especially when you consider that this version was a lot closer to the original novel and features stuff that couldn't even be hinted at in the 1947 version. The basic plot how a lot of perversion as we're dealing with one sister (Clark) who is certainly a sexual pervert and someone who is taken nude photos, which sets off the entire blackmailing. Teenage pornography is one of the many subplots as a wide range of characters come in and out of the story. For the most part I enjoyed this version but I think what really kept it from being a good movie is the rather lackluster direction by Winner who just doesn't seem to know what to do with the material. There are far too many scenes that contain no suspense, no tension and even worse is that some of the action scenes come across as some sort of bored after thought. There are a couple different scenes where Marlowe finds himself in some sort of struggle yet they're all filmed rather poorly and end up going no where. I'm not expecting some sort of masterpiece but the director should have at least worked the mystery a tad bit more but sadly there's very little energy or emotion to be found. I will admit that the story here is much better than the original movie as Marlowe and Mitchum seem perfectly well suited for the material. There are several scenes where the sisters come onto Mitchum and that laid back approach of his is perfectly done and there never was a better acting at playing this type of detective. Mitchum is clearly having fun with the role and he certainly helps keep the film moving. Stewart only has a couple small scenes but it's always nice to see him and the stuff with Mitchum was a lot of fun because the two legends are clearly having fun working together. Both Miles and Clark are good in their roles and we get nice supporting work from Richard Boone, Richard Todd, Joan Collins and Oliver Reed. This film certainly earns its R-rating as Clark is nude in pretty much each of her scenes here and the dirty nature of the pornography certainly sets the film apart from the original. The film had its setting changed to London, which is somewhat of a letdown as L.A. would have been much better but overall THE BIG SLEEP is a fairly rewarding picture but one only wishes the director had done a better job.

ianlouisiana One of Michael Winner's best movies.To many,that may seem to be damning "The Big Sleep" with faint praise,but in fact the much - maligned Mr Winner made two of the most interesting British movies of the 1960s,"The Jokers" and "West 11" and the highly individualistic "I'll never forget whats'isname" before setting out on a career path aimed perhaps at pleasing his accountants rather than the critics few of whom would forgive him for being so successful so young. He clearly divides opinion very strongly,fortunately for some of his detractors he does not appear particularly litiginous by nature. As a man who courts controversy he must have realised that re-making an iconic movie was going to be a risky enterprise.Nothing if not headstrong,he re-cast Mr R. Mitchum - the man actually preferred by Chandler - as Marlowe,albeit a Marlowe for the late 70s,smart,cool, confident and smooth.With power suits and an excellent set of wheels,Mitchum's Marlowe was designed to bear absolutely no resemblance to his predecessor's.In a further act of rashness Winner discarded the "Smart - mouth" dialogue that was in fact far from Chandler's slightly puritan style but which over the years had become associated with the movie to the extent that many of the audience assumed he himself had written it. Instead he settled for an honest - to - goodness straightforward rendering of the subject featuring an almost Lear - like General Sternwood and his two strange daughters. Some of Mr Winner's favourite actors appear and,continuing with the perhaps rather tenuous Shakespeare analogy,Mr R.Boone is as gleefully evil and limping as Olivier's King Richard. A good story is a good story,and to my mind "The Big Sleep" does not suffer from being set in England,indeed it could equally as well be set in Paris or Dublin. If Mr Winner was a shy,retiring, hermit - like creature no one would ever go and see his movies - a fact that would not please his accountants at all.