Big Bad Love Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)March 27th, 2002
BIG BAD LOVE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2002 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *
BIG BAD LOVE, by actor Arliss Howard in his writing and directing debut, is about an alcoholic writer named Barlow (Howard), who is a prolific producer of rejected manuscripts. As aimless as an old pickup skidding completely out of control on a long patch of black ice, the movie makes two hours feel like four.
Barlow and his ex-wife Marilyn (Debra Winger) share a couple of kids that they pass around on the weekends. Barlow, who earns a meager income as a house painter, spends most of his time in a stupor or recovering from one. Without any characters worth caring about, one way or the other, the movie offers viewers little. To further compound their misery, the movie keeps cutting to fast-edited, very brief dream sequences, flashbacks and dramatizations of Barlow's story ideas. Typical of these is one in which Barlow storms Marilyn's house while wearing night vision goggles, carrying a big stuffed animal and dodging fake explosions in the grass.
In the conclusion, Barlow sends off his latest hope for glory, a manuscript titled, "Big Bad Love." Let's hope that the publishers will reject it, causing this movie to disappear as if it never existed.
BIG BAD LOVE runs 1:51. It is rated R for "language and some sexuality" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, March 29, 2002. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the Camera Cinemas.
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