The Minus Man
It was bound to happen -- a movie about a serial killer who bores his victims
to death. Well, not entirely -- genial drifter Vann (Owen Wilson) uses amaretto
laced with a rare lethal mushroom to do in the losers he befriends and decides
to euthanize. Think Arsenic and Old Lace without the laughs.
Sixty-one-year-old first-time director Hampton Fancher re-creates to a fault
the banal and sinister point of view of his killer through non sequitur
voiceovers and disjointed minutiae; the result is fascinating and soporific,
kind of like the amaretto without the extra kick.
Vann, of course, is no weirder than anyone else in the stagnant backwater he
ends up in: his landlord, Doug (Brian Cox), likes to punch himself in the face;
Doug's wife, Jane (Mercedes Ruehl), mopes; and Vann's fellow postal worker
Ferrin (Janeane Garofalo) is desperate for human contact. Hovering gratuitously
over the proceedings are a pair of grouchy, perhaps imaginary police detectives
played by Dwight Yoakam and Dennis Haysbert. A big plus is Sheryl Crow as a
sad, funny barfly; for the most part, though, and perhaps intentionally, The
Minus Man doesn't add up. Screens at the Copley Place Thursday, September 9 at
6:45 and 9 p.m. and Friday, September 10 at 11 a.m. and 1:15 and 3:45 p.m. Director Hampton
Fancher will be present at tonight's 6:45 showing.
Film Festival Feature Films
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The Minus Man |
The Tavern |
Black Eyed Dog |
The Last September |
A Wake in Providence |
Man of the Century |
Pups |
Dreaming of Joseph Leeds |
Wisdom of Crocodiles |
That's The Way I Like It |
American Beauty |
Mifune |
Black Cat, White Cat |
Hit and Runway |
All the LIttle Animals |
Me Myself I |
The Alchemist and the Virgin |
Trash |
Old Man River |
The Poet and the Con |
Snow Falling on Cedars |
Guinevere |
East is East |
American Movie |
Rivers of Babylon |
Two Ninas |
Rats |
Keepers of the Frame |
The Runner |
More Boston Film Festival information, film descriptions, and show times
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