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Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The Worst Film Ever

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Routine, slightly interesting story of "what goes around comes around" variety. A rap music piece with extremely offensive sexual lyrics plays in an office scene, early on, and then blasts for 5 minutes or more during the office party scene.Unnecessarily crude, vulgar, demeaning, obscene, profane and tasteless. Enough to make the movie a "must NOT see."Beyond that, the lighting and mood is noir, most of the characters are self-centered, rude and arrogant, and their come-uppance, if it ever comes, is only briefly implied. For a morality play, 'Rick' certainly lacks morals.

What an odd film. The first ten minutes or so establish the ethos concisely. An Oriental woman enters Bill Pulman's office for a job interview. He asks, "Didn't Laura tell you I was busy and ask you to wait outside? Either she did or she didn't. If she didn't, I call down and fire Laura. If she did, you close the door and wait outside until I'm finished. Which is it?" When he's finished with his business (which is twitting his boss over the results of a football game) he asks the woman in and scans her resume. "So, Monica, you'd like to work here." "Michelle," she corrects him. "Hmm. So you're Chinese." "My grandparents were from Japan," she says. Pullman then draws out his denial of her application, relishing every moment of her humiliation, telling her, "I won't hire anyone who sits there and corrects me all the time just because I didn't memorize every goddam item on her resume." There is another terrific scene in those first few minutes, when Pullman visits the office of his Big Boss, Duke. (Everybody seems to be named Duke or Rick or Buck or Nick.) Pullman teases Duke about having lost the bet on the game and the two of them start playing grabass in this masculine way that high school kids do, ragging one another and calling names and jabbing each other in the ribs, chuckling all the while. However, after 30 or 40 seconds of this rough house we realize that the razzing is becoming more one sided. Duke -- Pullman's superior -- is now shouting all the insults while Pullman is groaning with mock pain. "I'm gonna kill your family and you, then I'm gonna take a red hot poker and shove it up your a** and cut off your b**** and set 'em on fire." Pullman (doing a splendid job) shields himself with his hands, says, "No, no -- not THAT!", and crawls under the desk while Duke follows him, still shouting threats.It's an extremely funny scene but there's an element of sadism in it too, a kind of Schadenfreude, since the main reason it's funny is that it's happening to someone else. It's the same reason we might laugh at some poor guy who realizes in a public place that his fly is open and quickly zips up. We wouldn't want to trade places with him. It's all the more humiliating for Pullman because his boss looks about 10 or 20 years younger than he is. Man, is that a degrading position to be in. I once applied for a job at a pizza place and was interviewed by a kid less than half my age. "Ever had any delivery experience -- sir?", he inquired.The movie follows a not uncommon trajectory, from whimsically amusing through seriousness to tragedy. I kind of wish it had stayed funny, because the tragic part doesn't really tell us much. We don't emerge from the experience epiphanied or anything. Basically, Pullman hates his boss so much, particularly after finding that his boss has been diddling Pullman's daughter, that he hires somebody to kill Duke. There is a mistake in identity and the wrong person is killed. Hello? The performances are all good, especially Pullman. I'm coming to respect him as an actor more and more because he can accomplish so much while seeming to do so little. (Listen to his phony groans through clenched teeth when Duke is tormenting him during that first scene. A perfect blend of pretending and feeling.) The dialog scintillates when it sticks to arrogance and humiliation. In the second half it turns rather pedestrian, but still -- that first half is very nicely done.The direction is efficient without being flamboyant. The score is unique. Without really paying much attention, I was able to identify only four instruments -- base, drums, guitar, and accordion. Not a quartet though. They don't play at the same time, and rarely in any combination at all. One rather lengthy scene is scored using only up-tempo solo drums. The only tunes I could discern were Christmas songs or variations on them.The movie has its weaknesses but it's an original effort. It imitates nothing that's gone before. The people involved should get a pat on the back, even if some viewers might find it a little simple in its message. If you are too greedy for material things, you will regret it later. I think the Greeks may have called this sin "pleonaxis." In this case the punishment seems to have been brought on by the Jade Emporer through a Chinese curse.

When the Munich Filmfest 2004 offered "Rick" I was delighted. Because I love Verdi/"Rigoletto" and I happen to think that Bill Pullman is a very fine actor. (Whom I would like to see on stage; the biggest compliment I have to offer, Mr. Pullman -) However, I was/am deeply disappointed because this "adaptation" of a tragedy of Shakespearean or Greek dimensions, excepting one short moment, just didn't come off. To start with, Rick is such a hard-core bastard (much more so, mark you, than Rigoletto when, mistaking or over-doing his role as jester, laughs off the sorrow of a grieving father) that his janus-faced attitude of a loving father is about as 'convincing' as a square football! Moreover, his daughter Eve, apart from being a fairly attractive young female, has none of Gilda's characteristics. On the contrary, she's arrogant, spoiled, thoughtless, pretty ruthless and - in her own way - heartless. Very much like 'Duke' in fact whose part doesn't even begin to work, and remains shapeless and pale throughout the film. Thus, by victimizing Eve accidentally the writer and director achieve little more than a "Too bad"-reaction. And there are aeons between this and the suicide of Gilda, who knows only too well that she deliberately sacrifices her life for a man unworthy of her love.However, there is ONE moment in "Rick" that is worthy of great drama/tragedy. And we owe it to (apart from Mr. Pullman) Ms Sandra Oh who (as Michelle) curses Rick in a night bar so vehemently, ferociously and convincingly that it took my breath away! Wow, WHAT a scene, what an actress!

Rick, well received at the SXSW festival this year, is a faithful modernization of Giuseppe Verdi's 1851 tragic opera "Rigoletto," which was also a reworking of Victor Hugo's "Le Roi s'amuse." I did not realize this until the Q & A period following the film, and it made all the difference. Without the tie to the opera, the film will be judged too much on the curse of believability, and that is a shame.The trio of Pullman, Aaron Stanford as Duke a.k.a. Bigboss, and especially Agnes Bruckner pull off strong performances.The dark moods and sound of the film are terrific, and the use of anonymous Internet sex chat to set up the relationship between Rick's boss and his daughter Eve (Agnes Bruckner) works well. Rick does have some difficulties. The crucial misfire is an absurd plot contrivance used to set up a mistaken identity.Director Curtiss Clayton has had difficulty distributing this film that has everything going against it in today's market - Pullman's unlikable main character Rick O'Lette, lack of a happy ending, and if Clayton mentions Rigoletto as the basis of the film, he is met with blank stares. Hopefully, he'll run into one opera-savvy distributor and get Rick beyond the film festivals, at least into the art houses.8.5/10