Tommy Nelson Stars: Natassja Kinski, Billy Zane, Lara Flynn Boyle, Rob Schnieder, Michael Bien, Dan Aykroyd, Thomas Hayden Church and Joey Travolta.This was a genuinely funny movie with great performances. It's a kill the husband get the money plotted film, but John Landis's script is surprisingly fresh. I'll start with the actors. Dan Aykroyd was my favorite performer as the humorless gangster. His lack of humor in the film is actually the funniest part of it. Schnieder and Bien are good as the two buddies in the film. Lara Flynn Boyle is hilarious as the slutty hairdresser. Now my problem with the film was the horrible ending. The plot felt so unresolved and it ended on such a horrible note that it ruined the rest of the film for me.My rating: ** out of ****. 86 mins. rated R for Sex/Nudity, Gory Violence and Language.

Carl S Lau With the introductory titles at the beginning of the movie, one can sense that this film is in big trouble. After all, how much emphasis should a palm tree receive - shot and reshot via redundant closeups and pull backs? The first set of scenes seems to set the tenor of the movie and is a grand hint that what follows has the potential of being awful. Cheesy sets, lousy dialogue, poor editing - all worthy of a ninth grade film buff student in his first big homework assignment. The framing of the shots almost seem to be out of "How to Make a Movie 101," with the subsequent movie having a very cook booked feeling or how to make a movie by the numbers. Somewhere about the 30 minute mark, it becomes exceedingly difficult to suppress the thought that the producer, director, and writer, John Landis, should not be taken outside and shot. It is amazing how he can take a more than capable cast and have most of them looking like low IQ dimwits. The movie's only saving grace is that it is highly uneven, meaning that there is something there to almost balance out its dreadfulness, but not quite. That factor is Dan Aykroyd whose reputation as a comedian proceeds him and without that awareness, the movie would be a complete failure. As the character, Bob, Akyroyd does his version of Tom Hanks in "Road to Perdition" - a deadly serious killer whose lack of on screen humor makes him very funny. The basic plot of the movie is contained within its title, "Dying to Get Rich! --- Susan's Plan," and revolves around Susan, played by Nastassja Kinski, scheming to get rid of her ex-husband to collect his insurance money. Characterizing the film as a "black comedy" cannot mask its gross deficiencies. It is painful to watch an actress of Nastassja's caliber having to mouth some of the lines that are liberally interspersed with a four letter word, starting with "f" and ending in "k." This must be a Guinness world record for Nastassja uttering the "f" word in any of her movies. It is my fervent hope that Nastassja will never have to attend a film festival of her works and have to provide commentary on a frame to frame basis for this movie. Because this movie is like a sitting duck, it is too easy to blast it out of the water. One scene has the major participants openly discussing the murder in a crowded, public restaurant! The awkwardness and stiffness of some of the scenes should constitute a nice lesson on how-not-to-make a movie. This is one movie that not even Nastassja can escape unscathed as she leads her merry band of idiots down a path of ruin.

reesedn3a416 I can't really say that this was a good movie, as much as I'd like to say so, but some of the performances in the film are pretty funny. I think Michael Biehn is terrific and he is easily the best character in the film. I also think Rob Schneider and Billy Zane give good supporting performances. Some of the gags are hilarious, but this Landis film can't compare to most of the stuff he's done in the past.

ALS-2 This movie was one of the most disjointed, strange, contrived, hard-to-follow (and not really worth the effort) movies I've ever seen. There were so many holes. For example, we are told that Adrian Paul's character was bad and we're supposed to believe his death would not be a tremendous loss. But why? We have no idea why he "deserves to die" other than the fact that his ex-wife stands to gain a lot of money (of which she has plenty, anyway)! And if I had to see one more scene of gratuitous sex, I think I may have become violently ill.This supposedly is a comedy. Ha, ha. It's more like a strange hallucination without the prerequisite of medication. Many scenes seem completely pointless, and many others seem to be designed solely because somebody promised somebody that he/she could be in the movie and a minor cameo had to be created. (Example: Michael Biehn's character's cousin. If anyone can explain why that character was necessary, I'll give him/her a dollar -- and that's nearly one-fourth of the total amount I wasted renting this movie!)It will be a very cold day in a notoriously hot place before I feel compelled to waste a couple of hours on this one again.