The Big Bang [Blu-ray]

If you get the inside jokes, (man both dead and alive at the same location, what time does the station get to the train?) and you like a weird plot twist (really weird), you will enjoy Big Bang. The movie is campy at times, Sure. Some reviewers carp about Antonio Benderas' accent (I heard him fine) but Big Bang is a great watch, especially if you are a nerdy suspense movie freak. Sam Elliott is spooky as a Bill Gates/Steve Jobs gone terribly, terribly wrong, and the fast paced, twisted story unravels in a compelling way.Worth sitting through just to hear the waitress answer the question about when she is done with work.....Watch it.

Film noir meets science fiction with a dash of surrealism thrown in for good measure adds up to a movie that probably shouldn't work very well."The Big Bang," however, does. It's got drama, some truly interesting characters, a fortune in missing diamonds, ruminations on particle physics, a nice plot twist, humor, and some very good performances by a cast full of veteran actors ranging from Antonio Banderas to Sam Elliot.The movie is an homage to Raymond Chandler and other mystery writers of the Thirties and Forties. If you are a fan of those novels, and the movies that were based on them, you'll recognize some of the characters and plot points. Banderas, for example, plays private detective Ned Cruz who has grown a little world weary, wondering what his life is all about when, on one night, a very large Russian boxer demands that he take a case. Cruz doesn't want to do it but is persuaded to do so because the Russian is willing to pay him a lot of money and because it involves finding a beautiful woman who has written to the boxer when he was in prison.If you think this sounds a lot like "Murder, My Sweet" starring Dick Powell back in the day, you're right.Cruz eventually finds the woman, a former stripper and porn star who is now the wife of an eccentric billionaire searching for what physicists call "The God Particle." Things get a little weird - in a good way - after that.Much of the action takes place in a small room where Cruz is being interrogated by three cops. Straight out of crime dramas from the late Forties and early Fifties, this is a brutal interrogation and Cruz gets smacked around a bit during it but generally manages to keep his cool. In a series of flashbacks he tells the cops how he ended up both temporarily blind and in their custody. He convinces them to let him guide them to a place where millions of dollars worth of diamonds are hidden and the story switches to the present tense from then on.This is not an overly violent movie, though a lot of violence is implied. It is also a pretty sexy one, including one scene in which Cruz and a waitress with some bizarre tattoos that are based on particle physics make love in a motel. Although erotic, it's also laced with humor.It's not a mainstream movie but, for my money, this is an inventive and very enjoyable film.

Director Tony Krantz and Screenwriter Eric Jenderson have definitely done their Film Noir homework in this excellent modern day merge of the Philip Marlowe/Mike Hammer private eye genre 'THE BIG BANG'. The story begins as a carbon copy remake of Edward Dmytryk's 'MURDER MY SWEET'-1944 where Dick Powell played the shamus character which was remade with Robert Mitchum in Director Dick Richard's underrated 'FAREWELL MY LOVELY'-1975 where we now have a new Marlowe named Ned Cruz played brilliantly by Antonio Banderas being sought out by a big palooka fighter/ex con looking for his beloved girlfriend here named Lexie. Slowly, a routine missing persons case becomes a pandoras box of intrigue which enters into Director Robert Aldrich's territory of the theme of the great whatzit in his masterpiece 'KISS ME DEADLY'-1955 where here Sam Elliot plays a Howard Hughes like recluse experimenting with quantum physics to recreate the seconds before the scientific big bang theory of the end of the world. It sounds complicated and far fetched but the film works combining beautiful color images and photography by Shelly Johnson and an electrifying guitar score by Johnny Marr turning the enterprise into a rollicking good time. The acting is awesome by all the players making the impossible seem believable , I will not divulge the crux of the plot, that's up to you to decipher and enjoy. Suffice it to say that in this modern day film world of bloated mindless dreck, we sometimes experience a silk purse of which Director Krantz should be truly proud of. Combining genres and sometimes European film making in the mix, 'THE BIG BANG' is a refreshing piece of celluloid which will appeal to fans of the Detective and Fantasy film genres. Anchor Bay releases it in a nice 2.35 transfer with great Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, a great featurette on the genesis of the film, extended scenes and Audio Commentary with Director Krantz and Co-Producer Reece Peterson. Highly recommended.

It was not the best or worse movie I have seen, it's worth a view

An overlooked little gem. Okay so it's really just Spillane with a modern twist and less raw villainy but it's not bad!Banderas critics have had a field day with his classic detective -film noir - voiceover (it is a bit much to follow) but it's worth the effort. Great shame the DVD DOESN'T HAVE SUBTITLES but that seems to be the way with a lot of movies these days (I thought we were supposed to be more PC a'la Blaire - oh, only when it suits the spin monsters, of course).Back to the movie; despite not hearing twenty percent of the dialogue, I enjoyed it and found Banderas' performance much better than most of the critics would suggest. He had just the right amount of cynical worldliness and human frailty required of any Mike Hammer / Sam Spade impersonator. Well scripted (loved the modern insertion of a Hadron collider) and Sam Elliot (also not noted to for his good diction) played the part of a modern cyber billionaire who obviously confused himself with g-d (hubris, eh) absolutely brilliantly. Female lead and back up were very easy on the eye but had substance too - good acting all round and well worth a look. Sadly, Bogart is safe though, so don't have too many expectations.

I knew what to expect: a non sense revisitation of hard boiled movies.And yet it surprised me: it was surprisingly good, funny, visually original and stylish in the first half, where "non sense" looks and sounds appropriate and promising, before being let down by a insipid, flat second half, saved only by the presence of Banderas. WOrth watching once at least

nil

all i'm able 2 say is it was strange, weird, entertaining but other than that i'm not sure what it was about.

very well constructed movie