The Naked Man (1998)

Quirky? You bet. This surreal tale of a man torn between two worlds is populated with supporting characters from both sides of the rainbow. The dialogue, the pacing, even the camera angles scream "Sit up straight for an evening of romance, revenge, and spinal integrity."

When I saw the trailer for this movie, I thought this was going to be a comedy about underground wreseling. Man was I wrong. I found this movie in the comedy section, but I did not witness any comedy, just a lot of unneccessary and drawn out seens. There also was not much wreseling going on. I don't know how you make a seen where a man wearing a suit with his organs drawn on beats up a biker boring. This movie beat all the odds though. By shear numbers alone that seen should have been at least mildly entertaining, somehow though it was not. The only saving grace is Racheal Leigh Cook's character. Not really the character but how she was dressed. Its a sad production when a movie must credit a characters lack of clothing as its only high point. This had pretty respectable actors in it to. Do actors read the scripts before they take parts? I really can not write any thing else about this movie for I do not wish to recall my viewing of it.

I rented this movie with promise and anticipation.I put it in and enjoyed the 1st ten minutes of it.But then whenever Stix entered and murdered the family, the plot just died and kept going down with it.Some parts were somewhat funny, nothing that would make me bust a gut (no pun intended)I did enjoy the wrestling scenes, except when he started going crazy on all the wrestlers, it was kinda corney.This movie had my eyelids going down.Out of five stars prolly 1 1/2It had a good start to it and then the bottom dropped out on it. Had potential...keyword...HAD

I admit it - the reference to Ethan Coen on the sleeve of this straight-to-video oddity secured a rental. I wasn't disappointed.The Naked Man bears all the hallmarks of a Coen-penned script - albeit from the more fantasy oriented side of their cadre (see also The Hudsucker Proxy and the Sam Raimi directed Crimewave). Also, the very first sound you hear is a man screaming - another Coen favourite.This is not to detract from J. Todd Anderson's direction. The whole production has a surreal air. He places events in a small town in middle America, but it doesn't seem out of place. You never forget this is supposed to be a fantasy.Look out for it next time you're in Blockbuster. If you don't expect something as masterly as The Big Lebowski or The Hudsucker Proxy, you'll love it. A lo-fi Coens flick, if you will.