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13 out of 17 people found the following review useful: Boring Low Budget Movie, 27 June 2006 Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The crew of a television of a small town composed of the reporter Jesse St. Claire (Rachel Leigh Cook), her lesbian supervisor Jane Berger (Annabella Sciorra) and the intern cameraman Rob Latrobe (Kip Pardue) are investigating the disappearance of the stripper Diana Cox (Julie Cialini). Rob received a videotape and found the shooting of another woman, Linda Mitchell (Amy Arce), in the same video, and he is convinced that the killer stalked his victims while filming them. When Jesse vanishes without a trace, the reporter Albert Bodine (Cary Elwes) from the syndicated television show "American Crime" joins the team in their investigation.First of all, I can not say if "American Crime" is a thriller supposed to be funny or a dark comedy. Indeed, it is a very boring low budget movie, with a promising beginning, but silly in the end story. Cary Elwes is simply awful, being a caricature of the most important character of the plot with one of the worst performances I have ever seen. Consequently, the direction is terrible, wasting what could have been a good story. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "Crimes em Série" ("Crimes in Series")
9 out of 11 people found the following review useful: Leaving American Crime open for a sequel was very optimistic, 8 May 2006 Author: Matthew Osborne from United Kingdom
The film started with an arty but lengthy credits intro. Next there is an implausible scene where the central characters get run off the road in the middle of nowhere and are shown a dead body by some yokels. No explanation is ever given as to why they were run off the road and they don't seem too bothered by it either.The plot then begins to change into a reality TV style thriller which ends up being more of a poor attempt at comedy. After about half an hour the film is getting pretty desperate, I wanted all of them to die, and quickly. The main characters: Cary Elwes: I know he's English (sort of) but this gives him no excuse to create such a ham awful character with a ridiculous accent. It's a pity as I thought he was better than this. Maybe the director found him funny. I doubt anyone else will.Annabella Sciorra: She is a persistently moaning Lesbian who despite being in mortal danger never believes anyone's warnings and gets in really silly situations.Kip Pardue: Carries a camera around with him everywhere looking surprised anything and everyone. He finally copped it in the last scene. He looked surprised.Rachael Leigh Cook: Acts the main character poorly and looks like she's wearing a wig. Little explanation as to why she leaves the film half way through. Nevertheless anyone leaving this film is a good thing.Overall I'm bitter because once I start watching a film I always have to see it through. I probably thought it couldn't get any worse after the first few minutes and it did. I remember seeing The Last Horror Movie recently and thinking I would never see anything worse. I was wrong.
8 out of 10 people found the following review useful: Tiresome from start to finish - avoid if you can!, 7 October 2006 Author: eye-sea from United Kingdom
Ever since Blair Witch Project, movies with little or no plot use a documentary style to fill up the 1 and a half hours, or so, they're given by the film company.This piece of trash is no exception. It starts off well - the first five minutes a teeny bit scary-ish - but then drops into this very tiresome documentary mode, full of crap interviews, laced with painfully unfunny "humour" and "wit".The guy hosting the documentary is annoying enough with what sounds like a fake British accent. And the make-up sucks. He's obviously heavily made up to look like someone he isn't. Maybe perhaps a spoof on a real TV news host! Who knows! And the character Jesse St Clair, played by Rachael Leigh Cook, wears this badly-made blonde wig that's obviously too big for her head. The sets, the script, the plot, the make-up department, not forgetting the embarrassing acting, all make for a movie to avoid at all costs.I had to steel myself not to get passed the first twenty minutes without whizzing through to the end.Dire. Zero out of ten if I could give zero. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with a one!
11 out of 16 people found the following review useful: good try, i guess, 11 December 2004 Author: jcallows from United States
When I saw the really cool and creative opening credits, I thought this movie might have a chance. Wrong! The filmmakers should've spent less time on the opening credits and more time on the rest of the movie. Throughout I was trying to figure out if the movie was supposed to be a thriller, a comedy or all of the above. After finishing watching, I'm still not sure. Although I admit that I didn't see the film entirely, missing bits and pieces of the middle where I lost interest and watched something else. When I returned, it seemed I didn't miss much. I just couldn't figure out what to make of it. It tried to have a documentary feel to it, but who interviews anyone in a car from outside the windshield? (I'm referring to those scenes where Anabelle Sciorra was talking to the camera through the windshield while driving.) It tried to have a realty-TV feel to it. It tried to be a lot of things. But in the end, it just failed to be a good film. Too bad, some really cool graphics went to waste here.
13 out of 20 people found the following review useful: Geez!, 4 June 2004 Author: nightcreeper from Switzerland
This one might be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Though, it had the ultimate Bonus: Rachael Leigh Cook. I only rented this movie because I knew she's playing a part.It starts pretty promising, because the opening credits are presented very originally! Then it just gets worse with every minute. Somehow it feels like the writer had an idea the director didn't understand. If you want to torture yourself for two hours, - go rent the thing. I'd love to make a review on it but I'm trying to forget I ever saw it. Please Rachael, if you read this: Don't do that kind of crap. You're way better than this! Not even your magic could save this one.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: It's Not Terrible, 7 May 2008 Author: Scars_Remain from United States
The reason I may have enjoyed this film is because I had extremely low expectations when I decided to sit down and watch it. I liked the idea of it and enjoyed parts of it but ultimately it is a very poorly executed wannabe thriller with so many clichés that it's almost sad. It's a good time if you turn your brain off so don't expect anything too intelligent at all.The acting isn't terrible, I've definitely seen worse and Rachael Leigh Cook is definitely easy on the eyes but there are better actors out there for sure. The story was definitely a good idea but it was executed very badly and in the end, it fell flat for me. I wanted it to work and I wanted to love it but it was nothing more than an okay film for a rainy day.I really have nothing more to say about this one. See it if you want, but if you decide not to, you really won't miss much.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: Stupid and boring, 18 November 2006 Author: falexandrou from Greece
The movie was awful. We're talking about a very low budget movie, with no scripts and the worst cast ever. The guy who plays Al Brondin or something, is English but can't be convincing as an English man!!! The girl who plays Jessie Saint Claire, wears a wig and it's so fake. I think they bought it from a Halloween shop. Concept was kinda catchy but it was so poor, that i think even the director wouldn't watch it. It was very obvious and the end was like every other movie that wanted to be different. The director followed the "great" recipe that demands actors that can't act so that the cost is low but they're hot, so that the audience is happy. I'd never accept this movie as a thriller. Music was a big failure too. Thrillers should be all about atmosphere and music. This one suffered from the lack of inspiration. This movie sucks big time
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: Horrible Acting and worse plot, 5 June 2008 Author: mcnitschke from United States
This was, quite possibly, the worst film I have ever seen. The acting is completely over-the-top, and the story line is ridiculous. I had to work very hard to actually be able to sit through the entire film! It's as if the filmmaker was coming up with the plot as he was taping the movie. It starts off promising, but takes a very long time to go anywhere and eventually doesn't! The movie is really not interesting for any portion of the story. This is another case of a filmmaker trying too hard. One thing is clear, this movie doesn't really have a plot and it is not suspenseful or scary. There is no point to this movie. Don't waste your time with this one.
3 out of 5 people found the following review useful: Enough to give one pause...or fast forward, 2 January 2005 Author: billyfish from Bogota, Colombia
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Well, I joke, but this really wasn't that bad of a movie, especially in the made-for-TV market. Cary Elwes' performance alone is worth sitting through the film. His quirky, neurotic documentarian wanna-be character is fun to watch, and you spend the first several minutes saying to yourself, "He looks a LOT like Cary Elwes, but..." The rest of the cast is solid if unremarkable, and the scenes that are supposed to be creepy are indeed so. What I liked about the ending was that it didn't tie everything up into a neat little package and drop it into our mail slot as the murderer did with his videotapes. The only thing you're sure of at the end is who WASN'T the murderer, because all the prime suspects are either incarcerated or dead...or are they? It's a fun twist on the murder mystery, with stories within stories, and the whole thing framed by documentary-style monologues and interviews.
3 out of 6 people found the following review useful: High hopes quickly deflated, 16 March 2005 Author: mithrandir2-2 from United States
With such an impressive cast, I had high hopes that this movie would be an edge-of-your-seat thriller. But sadly it never reached its potential. The story was poorly written, with gaping plot holes, inane dialog and absurd characters. The directing was sophomoric, reminiscent of a music video or weak commercial, leaving me with the impression that a different director might have presented the writer's ideas more effectively. And the acting was mediocre at best, with the exception of Elwes, who was simply awful (I've been a fan of his since The Princess Bride, and it was his name that convinced me to rent the movie, so this was a huge disappointment--particularly on the heels of Saw, which truly was an edge-of-your-seat thriller).I honestly can't recommend this movie to anyone, not even die hard fans of any of the cast. It's too much of a waste of time.
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