Directed by Tom Holland, written by Michael McDowell and Tom Holland, starring Robert John Burke, Joe Mantegna, Lucinda Jenney
Trap: Remember when you saw BABETTE’S FEAST, THE WEDDING BANQUET or BIG NIGHT? Films in which food and its preparation and consumption were lovingly detailed and you were left with a sense of the richness of everyday life – not to mention making you want to rush out for a big, gourmet meal? Well, this film was exactly the opposite – I don’t know about you, but I was left with nothing more than an awareness of the overwhelming cynicism, meanspiritedness and laziness that only a hack filmmaker who’s managed to luck into a sure-fire commercial property can provide. And it pretty much killed my appetite, too.
Bluesy: Oy, you’re tellin’ me. I was having Jenny Craig flashbacks the whole time. This movie was SO bad it wasn’t even funny. They took a very simple Stephen King horror story, about a group of men who do wrong a band of gypsies and get curses on them, worthy of several Tales of the Crypt episodes… and turned it into a mundane, overly literal interpretation of the title. I’d have to say just about everything in this movie was bad. The acting was lousy (with the exception of Joe Mantegna, who must’ve owed somebody a lot of money); the direction was nothing special; the special effects were cheesy; there was absolutely no time given to any sort of character development, which is unusual considering the book spends much of its time reveling in the fate from a gypsy with a cancerous nose the size of Manhattan (which, in the film, ironically looks remarkably like a pimple); there was no eery tone, nothing visually or stylistically interesting; women are treated as evil, cheating, horrible creatures that are the cause of all the trouble in the first place. Not since THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP has a blowjob caused so much trouble. But then, even mentioning this cheesy piece of fluff in the same breath as a great film like GARP does a great injustice. The only thing I could possibly compare this film to is, is…
Trap: A poke in the eye with a sharp stick?
Bluesy: Actually I was thinking more in the line of BLOOD & DONUTS.
Trap: Yeah, but that at least had David Cronenberg of all unlikely people playing a crime boss who lectures his underlings about the importance of appropriate footwear. And although Joe Mantegna is a bit more convincing as a mafioso here, his is really only a minor part and one that doesn’t fit that well into the narrative to boot. Instead the bulk, so to speak, of the film is carried by the predictably wooden Robert Burke, a fat, greedy lawyer whose curse is to loose weight, no matter how much he eats, until he wastes away completely. Not in and of itself a bad idea, but the film ultimately squanders any sympathy you might have for him by making the ultimate focus of his revenge a couple of supporting characters who, whatever they are doing behind his back, are generally likable and helpful when on screen – all of which contributed to the – if you’ll pardon yet another pun – sour taste this thing left in my mouth.
Bluesy and Trap Rate-a-Flick:
THINNER
Yick 
Tasteless
