A sort of frat boy and his girl friend get lost in uptown New York and the girl is kidnapped. Two million dollars in ransom is demanded. Her finger arrives in the mail. (I think this is what happens anyway. I missed a few critical minutes at the beginning.) The frat boy organizes a handful of his upper-middle-class friends and they manage to kidnap a notorious capo, Christopher Walken, who is either behind the kidnapping or knows who is, and so will help them retrieve the rest of her body, minus the finger. They chloroform him and take him to an empty mansion on Long Island where, to convince him they are hard-hearted and determined, instead of the inexperienced nudniks they are, they remove his finger while he's unconscious.
Walken wakes up in this large house belonging to one of the preppies and the rest of the film is taken up with his trying to get the girl back from the wheelchair he is duct-taped into.
Doesn't sound too promising. It's mostly shot on one set, like a filmed play. But three things lift this effort above the level I'd expected.
One is the working out of the plot, which has several unexpected pirouettes. The kidnapping is pegged by the mob almost immediately as "an inside job," which is about as far as attorney-client privilege will allow me to go.
The second is the dialog, which has innumerable sparkles in it -- and that's critical because it's a talky movie. Some lines are very amusing. Some are dead serious. Here's one of the funnier ones. Walken is taped into his chair and has to pee. So how will it be managed? Do they free his hands, something they're understandable loathe to do, or does somebody unzip Walken and make sure he evacuates his bladder in a tidy manner? ("Aim him good!", cries the chubby little kid whose parents own the mansion.) While this mission is being discussed, Walken contributes his point of view. "If somebody is going to be holding hands with my ****, can I at least get a drink first? I'm not asking for dinner and dancing. I'm not asking for a commitment."
The third is the acting. Man, do these guys put it across. Especially notable are Dennis Leary as Walken's chief agent, and Walken himself. Neither steps wrong. Christopher Walken is a marvelous actor. He's confined to a chair. He's bled half to death. He's strung out behind some analgesics and booze. And his set expression is one that artfully blends boredom with mild interest in the proceedings. At times he speaks like the soul of reason amidst these adolescent collisions of will. The director, Peter O'Fallon, gives us multiple reaction shots of Walker placidly watching the arguments and barbs being thrown back and forth by his captors, and they're funny as hell.
But don't be misled. It's not ALL talk. There's action too for the aficionados. Several shootings take place and while none of them results in a bath tub full of gore and splattered brains, none is done for laughs either.
It's well written, nicely directed, and the cast is fine.
Walken wakes up in this large house belonging to one of the preppies and the rest of the film is taken up with his trying to get the girl back from the wheelchair he is duct-taped into.
Doesn't sound too promising. It's mostly shot on one set, like a filmed play. But three things lift this effort above the level I'd expected.
One is the working out of the plot, which has several unexpected pirouettes. The kidnapping is pegged by the mob almost immediately as "an inside job," which is about as far as attorney-client privilege will allow me to go.
The second is the dialog, which has innumerable sparkles in it -- and that's critical because it's a talky movie. Some lines are very amusing. Some are dead serious. Here's one of the funnier ones. Walken is taped into his chair and has to pee. So how will it be managed? Do they free his hands, something they're understandable loathe to do, or does somebody unzip Walken and make sure he evacuates his bladder in a tidy manner? ("Aim him good!", cries the chubby little kid whose parents own the mansion.) While this mission is being discussed, Walken contributes his point of view. "If somebody is going to be holding hands with my ****, can I at least get a drink first? I'm not asking for dinner and dancing. I'm not asking for a commitment."
The third is the acting. Man, do these guys put it across. Especially notable are Dennis Leary as Walken's chief agent, and Walken himself. Neither steps wrong. Christopher Walken is a marvelous actor. He's confined to a chair. He's bled half to death. He's strung out behind some analgesics and booze. And his set expression is one that artfully blends boredom with mild interest in the proceedings. At times he speaks like the soul of reason amidst these adolescent collisions of will. The director, Peter O'Fallon, gives us multiple reaction shots of Walker placidly watching the arguments and barbs being thrown back and forth by his captors, and they're funny as hell.
But don't be misled. It's not ALL talk. There's action too for the aficionados. Several shootings take place and while none of them results in a bath tub full of gore and splattered brains, none is done for laughs either.
It's well written, nicely directed, and the cast is fine.