TotalTelly.co.uk
Devoted to Popular, Cult and Retro TV
Chain of Fools
RRP: £12.64
Our Price: £4.99 (subject to change)
"Chain" of laughs
Review date: 2006-01-19 Rating: 8 out of 10
Until recently, anyone who wanted to see cult heist comedy "Chain of Fools" would have to go to Australia or the Phillippines to find a copy. Now Americans can also get to experience this hilarious, Tarantinoesque little movie, with its oddball characters and screwball story. Just be glad Americans can get it now.
Barber Kresk (Steve Zahn) is a loser -- he isn't good at his job, he's been tossed out of his home, and his wife just dumped him for the marriage counselor (isn't that a breach of professional ethics?). Now he's depressed, and contemplating suicide. And yes, things get worse: a criminal named Avnet (Jeff Goldblum) has stolen three priceless coins, and decided to blackmail Bollingsworth (Tom Wilkinson), his billionaire partner in crime. After Kresk overhears this, he almost gets shot -- and Avnet ends up impaled on a pair of barbers' scissors.
Now Kresk is in a considerably nastier situation, so he steals the gun and the coins. But things take a sharp turn when he hires a hit man named Mikey (Elijah Wood), and discovers that the hit man is only seventeen and emotionally traumatized by his parents' suicide. And that Kresk is falling for the cop/Playboy model Sgt. Meredith Kolko (Salma Hayek), and that his nephew Scottie (Devin Drewitz) has now swallowed the coins. Now Kresk is in over his head, and has to deal with the strange and sometimes dangerous people around him.
"Chain of Fools" is one of those glorious little cult films that takes forever to get the attention it should have -- it languished on the shelf for four years before getting released. Maybe Warner Bros. dawdled because it's hard to classify -- it's not art-house yet not mainstream. But whatever you consider it to be, there are few movies that so perfectly balance out humor and heists the way this one does.
For your information, "Traktor" is not a person. It's seven persons, from Sweden, who have masterminded over three hundred commercials; two of them handle the direction of this film. And besides being good at romance and action, Pontus Löwenhielm and Patrick Von Krusenstjerna proves that they are also outstanding at black comedy. Black comedy is a hard thing to do, since most directors cross the line into grotesque or stupid.
In "Chain of Fools," the line is never crossed -- one particularly hilarious scene has two hit men arguing over who will kill a comatose man, only to have their victim lurch awake, then drop dead, thus dealing with their dilemma. The hit men, with their victim dead, saunter off to watch a musical, now the best of pals. And there's a distinctly Tarantinoesque flavor to the proceedings. For example, Mikey recounts three times how he bumped off a congressman -- the first two portray him as a butt-kicking fighter, but the third tells it how it really happened.
The cast of characters actually is quite quirky, and the actors do a bang-up job of bringing them to life. Steve Zahn is likable and laughable as a down-on-his-luck barber who desperately takes matters into his own hands, and Elijah Wood is equally good as the teenage hit man who cries in front of clients, loves "Cats" and has never actually killed anyone. Salma Hayek gets to play the can't-get-no-respect Kolko, a woman with a body AND a brain, and Orlando Jones has a small but entertaining part as a drag queen.
Fans of dark comedy will adore "Chain of Fools," a wonderfully warped comedy about priceless coins, Playboy bunny detectives, death by scissors, gun-toting teenagers and wild chases through a hospital. Definitely worth a look.
Similar Products
- Ask The Dust [2005]
- The Return [2003] [2004]
- After The Sunset [2004]
- Ash Wednesday [2004]
- Radio Flyer [1992]
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
David Cross
Steve Zahn
Elijah Wood
Jeff Goldblum
Salma Hayek
Creators:
Steve Zahn (Primary Contributor)
Salma Hayek (Primary Contributor)
Alex Schwartz (Producer)
Alexandra Schwartz (Producer)
Charles Block (Producer)
Happy Walters (Producer)
Matt Weaver (Producer)
Bix Skahill (Writer)
Director(s):
Recording label: Warner
Manufacturer: Warner
EAN: 9325336009369
Binding: DVD
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2005-01-07
Region code: 2
Running time: 98 minutes