Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

MonsterPerfect Good idea lost in the noise

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

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.

Wizard-8 This thriller had all but been forgotten until it was recently resurrected on Turner Classic Movies, where I finally got to watch it. It has a neat premise - a dying man decides to frame himself for a kidnapping/murder so that his wife will get the reward money... but complications happen. The movie is never boring, and George Kennedy and Eli Wallach both give solid performances. Also, there is an ending that you probably couldn't get away with in a Hollywood movie today. It's a good movie, though there are a few things holding it back from greatness. The direction and feel of the movie come across more like what you'd expect for a television show of the era. Also, the movie is a little slow. I am not demanding breakneck speed, but I think the movie could have been tightened a little. It's still worth seeing, and women may get some extra enjoyment out of it because Kennedy appears nude in one scene.

blanche-2 "Zigzag" is a 1970 film that stars George Kennedy as Paul Kennedy, a dying man who frames himself for an unsolved murder/kidnapping so his family can benefit from the reward money. His doctor has suggested a risky operation, but Paul has refused. He comes up with an elaborate scheme to be accused of the murder and collect the reward money under another name.Just one problem - after he's arrested, he collapses and gets the surgery and is cured. Now in order to save himself from the chair, he actually has to solve the case.Anne Jackson plays Paul's loving wife, and Eli Wallach his lawyer. So it's a top cast that provides good acting performances all around. Kennedy is good as the quietly desperate Paul, and one really feels the love he has for his family.This is an okay film destroyed by the ending, which makes you feel like you've been sitting there watching it for NOTHING. The audience feels betrayed at the end.Watch it for an exercise in frustration.

Erewhon The premise is familiar -- guy learns he's going to die, tries to find a way to leave his family provided for -- but it's presented in an interesting manner here, with Kennedy an appealing if unlikely lead. All goes well until the ending, which is so outrageously wrong for the movie that it completely sinks the film. A surprise ending is generally something many thrillers try for, but it has to be a surprise ending that satisfies the audience on some level, not one that throws the whole story back in their faces.

kennethwright2612 From the perspective of 2003, the saddest thing about this very downbeat picture is that it could never get made as a commercial production these days - certainly not with a middle-aged and far from beautiful character player in the lead. Although its structure relies on two large implausibilities, the story, characters and motivations are unashamedly adult and human: Zigzag takes life seriously, and when was the last mainstream picture you saw that did that?The versatile and sympathetic heavy George Kennedy (if I'm ever on a passenger plane that's in trouble, I'd want him at the controls) gives an honest, understated performance as a flawed family man who takes a desperate road to a strange kind of redemption. The way he does that would have made a terrific lower-depths 1940s noir for a second-division star like Dana Andrews or Edmond O'Brien, but Zigzag loses nothing from its setting in the less obviously cinematic milieu of respectable lower-middle-class life in an up-and-up America that was just beginning to turn Dayglo.I don't say it's a neglected classic - there's not the slightest touch of humour, the supporting cast aren't trying very hard, and the look of the film is reminiscent of an old episode of Kojak (so are most of the actors). Zigzag is just a solid piece of grown-up dramatic entertainment whose modest ambitions are positively Shakesperean compared to almost anything you could get insulted by at your local multiplex this weekend.