racfr OK so I read the horrible reviews this film received, so when it was playing on TV I wasn't that excited. And then I just started to watch it, and it turned out to be not so horrible after all.In the first few minutes it looked like some cheap Tarantino-ripoff, only without the good dialogue and style, and it was painful I have to admit. The interactions between the characters aren't as witty as funny as in a QT movie, while obviously the makers were aiming at capturing the same atmosphere, but it just comes off painfully unfunny and forced.But, after 20 minutes the movie starts to become slightly different, like somehow the makers just decided to 'OK we can't copy Tarantino so let's just make our own movie'. There are actually a few good jokes and even a really minor portion of style as well. In the second act the movie almost catches up, there are a few moments of actual tension, while also some good jokes. I also liked the kind of mystery surrounding the main character, as his motives and whole persona isn't quite clear in the first part of the movie. It is too bad that in the third act the movie turns from 'kind of funny-weird but OK' to 'completely ridiculous' in about a few minutes. Characters just start to make idiotic decisions (which wasn't usual before), motivations make no sense and even change from one extent to another, and all in all the whole stuff doesn't make sense anymore. Maybe the creators just realized that they were at the end of the movie, and something like 'hey this is the end of our Tarantino lookalike movie, so let's just make a you-didn't-expected- everyone-shoots-at-everyone ending because that makes Tarantino movies good, right?' went down, what completely ruined the movie in my opinion.There is also a huuuuuge plot hole as well, where one character's motives are just doesn't make ANY sense, although you will only realize that after the last 'reveal' scene of the movie. BTW, the whole mystery of the bag is a bit (OK, way too) forced, they tried to build up this huge anticipation and mystery about it, but you can easily guess by the end, what is in the bag after all.A bit waste of good talent as well, Cusack is always likable and he delivers his standards here too, DeNiro clearly does not take things too seriously (in fact, a bit over the top, especially at the end, which just further emphasizes the awfulness of the whole scene). I haven't heard about the female lead before, but I found her OK in this movie.All in all it's a 6.5/10 for me, it is a perfectly disposable, one- watch thriller that's actually not bad when it's not trying to be some other movie. It could be quite fun if you have the right mindset for it.

arfdawg-1 The Plot.A professional shooter gets a new job from his boss.The job is simple to bring him a bag without opening it.But everyone on this town wants that bag.So Jack has to protect the bag and try to carry out his mission.In this city he will meet a lot of people and he will seduced by mysterious woman.Why didn't he give up the FIRST time his boss hung up on him> Because this horrible movie is weird for weird sake.Not one frame is believable.It sucks

carbuff I love weird movies, but this is just trying way, way too hard. The Serbian midget; the one-eyed pimp; the currency-trading, private 727-owning mob boss; the Amazonian hooker/assassin; etc. was all too much. This has got to have gone straight to video, even though it starred both Robert De Niro and John Cusack. It never clicks, even though it does have a few surprising reveals, especially at the end. As the person who watched it with me commented, it's totally clichéd quirkiness--way too forced and strained, coming off much like a second-rate David Lynch movie. It probably looked pretty good in script form, but just didn't come together. Also, if it matters to you, there was not a single decent, likable, or sympathetic character in the entire movie. Everyone and everything is bleak, pretty much from beginning to end.

skeptic skeptical I'm not sure what to make of The Bag Man. It all seems rather pointless. Except that it is replete with intertextual film references. Blue Velvet, Red Rock West, Psycho, any and everything made by Quentin Tarantino. Okay, so the writer and director have watched a lot movies. So have I. But that does not mean that I should be making movies. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for intertextuality and allusions to famous films, provided only that they are not utterly gratuitous to the plot. Here they strike me as purely and simply self-indulgent. In truth, there is nothing holding all of the individually creepy elements together--the Eastern European slut in a Wonder Woman suit, the sadistic dwarf, the black pimp with an eye patch, the unbalanced Vietnam vet motel manager (I'm not making any of this up)--beyond of course the familiar refrain, "you're all going to die." The extreme violence of this "story" (which is a stretch) is incredibly Tarantino-esque. In fact, at one point I convinced myself that this must be a Tarantino movie.Then, adding insult to injury, the conclusion is yet another version of the worst of all possible happy Hollywood endings: "girl meets boy and they fall in love". Truly, I cannot recommend this thing. I am sorry that De Niro saw fit to donate his father's paintings to such a production. Seems like a desecration to me.