Thinner (1996)

Robert John Burke plays obese lawyer Billy Halleck, who accidentally runs down and kills an old gypsy woman with his car while he is receiving an on-the-move blow job from his wife. Successfully avoiding prosecution (thanks to his colluding pals, the local judge and police chief), Billy thinks his troubles are over, but they are only just beginning: Tadzu Lempke (Michael Constantine), father of the dead woman, uses gypsy magic to seek revenge, causing Billy to lose weight at an alarming rate.Fright Night director Tom Holland is the man behind this mid-'90s Stephen King adaptation, but having come straight from helming TV mini-series The Langoliers (also based on a King book), he gives his film the look and feel of a made-for-TV movie rather than a cinematic release, the director clearly struggling to make the transition back to the big-screen.It's not all bad news, though: the film breezes along at a reasonable pace, boasts decent make-up effects (courtesy of Greg Cannom), a little bit of gore (best being a neat 'hand with a hole' effect), and some welcome eye-candy in the form of sexy Kari Wuhrer as a gypsy temptress. While the film doesn't exactly rewrite the rules, there's never a boring moment and, much like Sam Raimi's similarly themed Drag Me To Hell, the film packs a neat twist at the end.

Bad acting and story line; I guaranteed my mom that Stephen King didn't do the screenplay for this, like he's done for others, as I went to look it up...and what'd'ya know. The sexy young gypsy girl dances sexily for Billy early on, flashing him, then flips him off, SPITS at him, and walks away. And this is before he even runs over the elder gypsy woman crossing the street. If I were him in that scene, I'd be like, "I'm lost... Come again?" She later explains her anger to him when he visits their campsite that "You white folk never SEE us. You're always wrapped up in yourselves." Excuse me but Billy looked over at their group from across the way at the beginning and even asked a co-worker about them. What does she mean they never SEE them? Billy contradicts himself from scene to scene, like his reaction to his daughter's concern about his weight loss that there's nothing to be concerned about it because he's finally found a diet that works, only to hurl his plate later on at the wall and get irritated with his wife that he's being erased, like she just doesn't seem to grasp that. The book does a much better explaining why Billy's angry at his wife and feeds her the pie at the end. The movie doesn't explain that at all; it just comes out of nowhere.

Managing to get off on a murder charge, a lawyer suddenly learns his weight-loss is the result of a curse placed on him by the gypsy he helped to screw over and tries to find a way of ending it before it consumes his world.This here really wasn't all that great and had a lot wrong with it. The main thing against this is in fact the central premise, as this one takes up the idea that what's going on here is scary when it really isn't as the concept of a curse causing an obsess person to drop off weight no matter what he does. This is simply not a scary proposition at all, and to make this be the root cause of fear in a ninety-minute movie is simply ridiculous by forcing this one to become completely dependent on such lame scenes as the arguing with the family over first losing weight and then how much he's lost as quickly as he is, the different tests and methods being done to try and figure out what's going on and the behavioral change in going from loving his new look to from all the compliments to being terrified of how much he's going to shrink next, and none of this makes the film any better at what's going on here as this one manages to become deadly boring here with this one concentrating on these issues for such a large majority of time here that it's not so interesting as the main point of the story here. Even the supposed adultery subplot here is just excruciatingly dull with absolutely nothing of any interest happening here and just making this one feel like forever before it really gets to anything decent or interesting and this manages to fulfill the fact that doing this makes for an enjoyable time here. The far more interesting and creative scenes apply to his cronies which actually feature the opportunity for scares and other chilling moments as they're damaging to the body which would've been a lot more fun rather than watching him run around the countryside chasing after the group. These here really bring this one down while it does have a few decent moments along the way. The biggest factor going here is the rather enjoyable final half, which not only gets the really enjoyable but also has some solid action within the mafia assaults on the gypsy camp set-off by the early ambushes before the decent shootout to be found here that certainly sets this going rather well. The only other part that comes off nicely is the whole concept of the curse and what it does, as the method for this one coming into fruition is nice enough and all the different rules and rituals for this are rather nicely explored. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot that works.Rated R: Adult Language and Violence.

I liked the movie because it is about basic human things like revenge, greed and gluttony. On top of that you have nice special effects and OK actors. The script is reasonable, although I don't know how true it is to the book, since I haven't read it. There is a fine line between feeling sorry for the gypsies, who are shunned by society and taken advantage of, and sympathizing with the white man, who is cursed by them, and who has to deal with them living outside the norms of society. This is a clever story. I also like the cameo role by Stephen King as the shop keeper. Finally, you get an untraditional ending, were the main character dies, and we are left wondering if neither the gypsies or the white man comes out on top. Both suffer losses, but I think the morale of the story is that revenge is never a great idea, and that greed makes it easy to take advantage of people who are different. Although it can all come back and hit you in the face.