Don't Come Knocking Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)March 15th, 2006
DON'T COME KNOCKING
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2006 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
Beautifully shot but a colossal bore, DON'T COME KNOCKING amply illustrates one of my movie rules. After over 3,000 reviews, I have come to understand certain key maxims about the cinema. One of these is that short and pointless is much better than long and pointless. As Wim Wenders's DON'T COME KNOCKING drags on and on, it is painfully obvious that this is a movie with little on its mind. You won't have much on yours either as you watch Sam Shepard playing Howard, a washed-up actor who was once a famous celluloid cowboy. As a morose Howard slowly moseys around, you won't find anything compelling in the story or in his character. Your challenge will be to stay awake through it all. It doesn't help to know that Shepard wrote the script, since it will just make you angrier at Shepard and his character for wasting your time.
As DON'T COME KNOCKING opens, Howard is working in the Utah dessert. Busying filming another western (PHANTOM OF THE WEST), he is a star with a troubled past. His newspaper clippings are of drugs, booze and orgies, and the contents of his trailer attest to the constancy of his bad habits. Like the cowboys he has played so often, he gets on his horse and rides away, much to the consternation of the bond guarantee company which has thirty-five million dollars riding on the completion of the picture.
The only potentially interesting character in the story is played by Tim Roth. Roth plays a detective hired by the bond company to track Howard down. As much promise as this character appears to hold, absolutely none of it is realized.
Most of the film stock is wasted on a long narrative about Howard's journey to Montana to see the son he never knew he had. Jessica Lange plays the boy's mother. There is absolutely no payback in this entire section of the film. Basically dramatically inert, the movie tries to break out briefly and fails miserably. The one dramatic scene comes in a clichéd moment, when Howard's son throws all of his own furniture out the window. This episode isn't the least bit believable or interesting.
The only thing good about DON'T COME KNOCKING is that Franz Lustig's cinematography will knock your socks off, especially in the gaudy interiors of a Nevada casino, where Howard goes briefly. Suffice it to say that the images aren't worth the time or the money to see the movie itself.
DON'T COME KNOCKING runs a long 2:02. It is rated R for "language and brief nudity" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, March 24, 2006. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the Camera Cinemas.
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
