The Bag Man (2014)

I was curious what was in the bag. I will turn off a movie after 10 minutes if I'm bored, but not this movie. Had good actors who did a good job. I would watch it again.

Review: This movie starts off intriguing but then it goes downhill once Jack (John Cusack), reaches the hotel, where most of the film is based. Its about a hit-man whose asked by his crime boss to collect a bag and bring it back to him. All of the instructions are straight forward but he's not allowed to look in the bag, no matter what. Whilst waiting in a hotel for the collectors to get the bag, a bunch of random events makes the whole transaction harder than he thought. On top of that, a girl ends up in Jacks hotel room because she is trying to escape from her pimps. Once Jack has fort of the crooked cops and a couple of criminals, with the girl by his side, he then meets up with his crime boss to exchange the bag for loads of money but all is not what it seems. I was actually enjoying the movie before all the random events started to happen. I liked Cusack and DeNiro's character but the girl spoilt it because she distracted Cusack from the whole mission. I also thought that the storyline got out of hand after a while but when the story unfolds at the end, it actually made a lot of sense. By that time I had lost interest in the movie so I really wasn't that bothered about how the film was going to pan out. Anyway, the performances were average from Cusack and DeNiro and the script really wasn't that great. DeNiro wouldn't stop waffling on about rubbish, which got on my nerves after a while and I really didn't understand why Cusack just didn't open the bag when he first got it. At the end of the day, it was just a bad day at the office for these two veteran actors and I'm not surprised that this film went straight to DVD. Not that great!Round-Up: At one point in DeNiro's career, you would have never imagined his movies going straight to DVD but now it really isn't a surprise. I didn't understand why he had that awful wig and weird nose extinction in this film either! Anyway, this is the first movie directed by David Grovic who also produced the awful Dying of the Light with Nicolas Cage. Basically, its the second time that he had the chance to make a movie with some decent actors and he's made a right mess of it. There's a couple of twists near the end of this film which would have made the movie quite clever if the middle wasn't so sketchy. Anyway, I'm obviously not alone by saying that this movie really wasn't that great, judging by the movies takings but I really doubt that it will damage Cusack or DeNiro's reputation.Budget: N/A Worldwide Gross: $462,000 (Terrible!)I recommend this movie to people who are into their crime/drama/thrillers about a hit-man who has to collect a bag for his crime boss but he's not allowed to look in the bag, regardless of the circumstances. 3/10

She is hot and worth watching in this movie for every frame that she is in.Get the DVD so you can freeze frames.Just watch her, zone out with whatever and enjoy the movie.It is trying to be Seven, but falls short.Crispin Grover is a hoot as the really goofy guy Ned. Great job.Was De Niro dating her at the time or did he just make the movie to go on a 'date' with her.It is one of those movies where De Niro wants to know if he can trust Jack, in some future deals.He sure puts him through a very serve test to find out.

I'm not sure what to make of The Bag Man. It all seems rather pointless. Except that it is replete with intertextual film references. Blue Velvet, Red Rock West, Psycho, any and everything made by Quentin Tarantino. Okay, so the writer and director have watched a lot movies. So have I. But that does not mean that I should be making movies. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for intertextuality and allusions to famous films, provided only that they are not utterly gratuitous to the plot. Here they strike me as purely and simply self-indulgent. In truth, there is nothing holding all of the individually creepy elements together--the Eastern European slut in a Wonder Woman suit, the sadistic dwarf, the black pimp with an eye patch, the unbalanced Vietnam vet motel manager (I'm not making any of this up)--beyond of course the familiar refrain, "you're all going to die." The extreme violence of this "story" (which is a stretch) is incredibly Tarantino-esque. In fact, at one point I convinced myself that this must be a Tarantino movie.Then, adding insult to injury, the conclusion is yet another version of the worst of all possible happy Hollywood endings: "girl meets boy and they fall in love". Truly, I cannot recommend this thing. I am sorry that De Niro saw fit to donate his father's paintings to such a production. Seems like a desecration to me.