All the Rage (1999) User Reviews

do you have a gun?

[raving_wolf · 7/10 · 26 August 2000]

this film is different as a score of people discover things about themselves and others that they didn't know and how to use a gun.

at first i must admit it was a slow flick, but i like these movies where the point of view changes from one character to another with their own little side stories, only to find that they are all really connected.

this is a fun movie that deals with the reality of guns in the united states and how harmful they can be in the wrong hands. a terrific message put to use in a very strange story...i give it two thumbs up in the origionality department and another two thumbs up for anna paquin, who goes from the silent and scared ROGUE in the X-MEN movie, to a trashy whore who just happens to be underage and loving it.

Guns Guns Guns Guns Guns. You know someone's got to die. But will we care?

[ToldYaSo · 6/10 · 12 September 1999]

In a film all about guns, it doesn't take long before some blood is spilled. Part social commentary, part dark comedy, "All The Rage" finds its place just behind making a strong point about gun ownership and their use by the general American public. Making its world premiere at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival, this film touches upon issues like irreverence and obsession but doesn't dwell on the morality, inherent danger and potential for misuse.

Being a Canadian, I feel extremely fortunate to live in a country that is not infested with firearms and hope that will never change. The prevalent, ingrained element of guns in American society always exists as a threat to us, the Northern neighbours who live in awe of the lifestyles and death counts. We all fear that one day we may find ourselves in the same boat. If nothing else divides us, I hope at least that this will never change.

The cast features many established, well known and popular actors, some in drastic departures from what we're accustomed to seeing them in, and some not so much. Everyone seems to be putting forth the effort that would make any director proud, but somehow this directorial debut is lacking something.

The setting of the film feels almost like a cartoon comic strip with characters who behave in strange and often irrational ways. I feel this lack of a realistic backdrop takes away from the film's potential to deliver a strong message or generate much of an emotional response from the audience. Few of the film's realistic character portrayals lend enough to give the film's overall sense that of a serious one. Therefore, it's hard to take this film seriously. It wasn't terribly funny either. I hate to say it, but some of the most enjoyable elements of this film for me were the music selections, including a great opening song from Talking Head David Byrne. During the film festival, I tend to be more generous than usual, but I can't say this film won me over.

Uneven satire; powerful edgy critique of the American ethos with a shaky story.

[hdinin · 7/10 · 13 September 1999]

To be taken seriously only as political satire. Quite humorous and edgy, with a sharp script, but spotty continuity in the narrative. Almost more a cartoon than a good story.

None of the characters are believable, which is OK, as they seem to be distillations of types. All of the men in this film are horrible--I wouldn't want a friend or a relative among them. Women are treated as victims, more or less, what spare representation there is of women, though both Joan Allen and Anna Paquin are wonderful in these highly stylized roles.

Jeff Daniels's performance, as are those of most of the other men, are masterpieces of underacting. Gary Sinise and Giovanni Ribisi are given grand opportunities to chew up the scenery, which one may have every expectation either will do, literally, at any moment.

It seems to me this is also less about guns than it is about how guns are a horrible and all too real manifestation of those things--far more terrible and dark--that may have become by now an inalterable part of the American (that is, the U.S. American) character. Some other themes, besides casual (and not so casual) violence--twisted attitudes toward sexuality, the vagaries of the over-hot infotech culture, and our inability to perceive our own psychological deficiencies--are not well integrated.

Revue at from World Premiere @ Toronto film Festival

[Dr_Evil-3 · 12 September 1999]

This is Mr.Sterns debut as a movie director. With such a wonderful cast you just can't go wrong. This movie is about, well...GUNS. It is a satirical look at guns in western society and it's ill effects. This movie will have you laughing, but thinking as well. Jeff Daniels and Joan Allen are both wonderful and show their range as great actors. The entire cast really gets into the movie, but it would be hard to explain a plot, due to the fact the movie really tells the intermixed story or several people, from different parts of our society.

Interesting but Preachy

[mgvolpe1 · 5/10 · 27 October 2003]

This is another attempt by Hollywood to get the general public

incensed against guns. When the truth be known, Hollywood

wouldn't have a thing to write about and make movies about if it

weren't for guns. Take a moment and think about the movies you

have seen lately and long ago. Guns, Guns, and more guns. You

can count on one hand the 'driving miss daisy' type movies that

have come out of Hollywood. In this movie they don't want you to

pay attention to the lack of morals demonstrated by almost all of

the characters. Just think about the guns. The story was

interesting with the interplay of how the characters were at one

time or other involved with one another.The last good movie I saw

was 'Secondhand Lions'.

A solid cast trudging through a mediocre film

[=G= · 6/10 · 18 August 2000]

"...Rage" focuses on a motley bunch of underdeveloped and loosely interconnected characters who have a common denominator: The hand gun. A marginally entertaining film at best, the flick seems to be trying to make some sort of statement about hand guns. However, it's not likely that a film which can't deliver quality entertainment can deliver meaningful social commentary. "...Rage" is not to be taken seriously on any level if taken at all.

One of those movies that just make me say "what the !@#$...?"

[mentalcritic · 2/10 · 3 April 2001]

Months after watching It's The Rage, I'm still not sure what the director and writer were trying to accomplish. Were they trying to tell me that guns are bad things and that they should all be smelted down into raw steel/plastic/whatever? Well, being that I long for the good old swords-and-bows of yesteryear, I guess I can live with an anti-gun message. However, having almost killed people with just my bare hands, I can tell you with authority that without a person holding it with the nerve and idea to do the killing, a gun cannot do a thing. It is only as effective as the person using it.

Nonetheless, the statement that guns are a bad thing in the hands of the wrong people is still a valid one. However, this film presents that statement in the worst possible fashion: by presenting every gun owner in the film as a lunatic, the film falls into stereotyping. In the minds of Reddin and Stern, a sane, rational gun owner does not exist. Every gun owner to them is a mental illness stereotype, a homosexual stereotype, or both. The few characters that don't conform to this dull pattern are police officers who embody an uneasy sense of corruption. Apparently, the idea of a public figure who owns a gun in order to defend himself from lunatics who disagree with his message has never occurred to these people.

Even the dedication of the film to a friend who was killed in gun play does not help the situation. It makes the entire story come off as the confused whinings of a child. Yes, it's tragic that someone was shot for no good reason. Hell, dozens of people were shot for no good reason in a place called Port Arthur, just a couple of thousand kilometers from where I live. But then again, if just one or two of the people who were killed in Port Arthur had a firearm themselves and knew how to use it properly, the death toll from that incident would have been drastically reduced. This is the one inescapable fact that extremist films such as this would never willingly admit to.

The film doesn't exactly work as a comedy either, thanks in part to the aforementioned stereotyping. I suspect that Gary Sinise's character was meant to be a joke, but since I have heard it a million times already from people who are far too stupid to be making films, it fell flat. Even millionaires with fragmented personalities are aware they have to take care of business. The same goes for the characters played by David Schwimmer and Giovanni Ribisi.

The only actor who salvages their credibility from this mess is the ever-likable Anna Paquin, and it is not surprising that her character offers the biggest hint at a second dimension. Perhaps if It's The Rage had been entirely about her, or developed as a satire narrated from her viewpoint, the negatives of this film might have been easier to swallow. Then again, considering that she winds up behaving in a stereotypical fashion herself, maybe not. You know a film is in trouble when one of the few Oscar winners of recent years who has not irrevocably damaged the credibility of the awards cannot save it.

I'm not a big fan of guns, but I am less of a fan when it comes to stereotyping and one-sidedness. These are two elements that this film has in spades, and it is with a heavy heart that I can't even recommend it as a comedy. Worth looking at to see Anna Paquin in yet another role that is truly beneath her. All The Rage gets a two out of ten for me (which is even more damning than a one, since I often give ones to films that are so bad they're funny).

Good film, but no "Pulp Fiction"

[yuksonme · 6/10 · 16 December 2005]

It's an interesting film...there's a neat line in the film paying tribute to "Pulp Fiction," and while it's nowhere near as good as "Pulp," it's definitely a nice "popcorn" kind of film. The film definitely tries to use Tarantino's interlocking character paths technique to spin a dramatic narrative on gun violence, but some of the interaction is obviously forced. For example, there's a scene in a video store with four characters interacting, and then almost immediately after, there's a scene in a bar with four characters interacting, one from the previous scene. I'm not crazy about Gary Sinise's thinly veiled "Bill Gates" character, but the other roles all seem to be strong characters that stand on their own. A movie worth watching on a nice, rainy night.

What is it?

[jpschapira · 5/10 · 13 March 2005]

Tonight, a few hours ago, I found myself trapped in a dilemma. It wasn't anything very big, it was just about what movie was I going to watch on Sunday evening.

Every month I write down all the movies that I'm interested in and that I could watch in TV, and I try to see them. It's a good thing to do. The deal is, that I had "Black Hawk Down" planned for Sunday 13, and I was going to watch it. But yesterday I was watching some fascinating parts of "Living in Oblivion" (I have to watch the whole film) and I heard about "It's the rage" (TV title), which is "All the Rage", right? So I wrote it down and immediately realized that the movie was starting just when "Black Hawk Down" was.

So the dilemma arrived when I had to choose which movie to watch. I thought quickly. I had "Black Hawk Down", an awarded film, directed by Riddley Scott, the man behind the masterpiece that is "Gladiator". I had the cast, with Josh Harnett (one point less), Eric Bana (don't like him), war movie (not my favorite type at all, and I think they just keep repeating the story since the first of its type). I didn't mention Ewan McGregor because he's a good actor in my opinion.

Well, then there was this film, "All the Rage", directed by a James D. Stern (don't know him), who, however, managed to get an incredible cast. Better Gary Sinise and Jeff Daniels than Josh Harnett and Eric Bana; a lot better. And there was also Joan Allen, Anna Paquin, Giovanni Ribisi, David Schwimmer; all of them and some more in alphabetical order. Although I must say it wasn't only the cast, but the trailer too, and its title, the elements that made this film interesting enough.

And there I was some hours ago, sitting in front of the TV, and watching "It's the Rage", or "All the rage" (it doesn't matter). So I met all these people, talking about guns and committing murders, so when I had seen one hour of the movie I was thinking: "Everyone's gonna die". Interesting the movie was, indeed. Interesting for me was to watch Gary Sinise in an astonishing performance (see it for yourselves), playing an eccentric millionaire tired of the world outside and hidden in his "inside" world. Sinise has the best performance in the movie, and also the best lines. Jeff Daniels is very good (but with the same face and expression he has decided to keep a long time ago) as an obsessed husband. Anna Paquin spreads talent as a young slut, taking advantage of everybody because her brother has a gun. She's religious, his brother believes. He's a punk, crazy about security and life and death played by Giovanni Ribisi. David Schwimmer seems different in his gay role, in his trance. I must also say Andre Braugher and Josh Brolin almost steal the movie with their roles. Robert Forster wanders unnoticed in an important role. And Joan Allen is just alright as a lost person, dealing with important things at the end of her life.

Am I repeating too many words here? I could be, because these are the words that make the movie and everything goes on around them. Life? Death? What are these things? Just the beginning and the end of our existence, I like to think. This film doesn't really "deal" with these things, but they are constantly present in it. "Trance" is also a word to talk about. Everything seems to be in a profound trance. There's not much music, shots are silent, the environment is strange, the camera never seems to stop, always approaching the characters until it probably hits their eyes. It all seems to be going down, like...Life probably? The end of life, better known as death? I can't even tell if this society exists; everybody's talking about guns, everybody (I say again) is in a trance, everybody walks the streets and meets. The characters in the movie eventually meet, in strange occasions, in different parts of this city. It reminded me a little bit of "Sábado" ("Saturday"), an Argentinean film I love in which different people have encounters in the city. It's wonderful. But "All the Rage", or "It's the rage" it's not wonderful at all. It says too much but does almost nothing. It tries to be thought-provoking but it ends being a mess.

I have to finish writing this, but there are many things you could discuss about this movie. It has an element, something that makes you think why it ended being the movie it is. I don't have much time now (although more time than the characters in the film). If you want to see Gary Sinise shining, watch this movie; it's the least I can say.

However, these amazing actors, for some reason chose to be in this film. Was it the rage, maybe? Was it all the rage? About the dilemma, I solved it, yes. I'll catch "Black Hawk Down" another day.

Not great but not awful

[Lucian-3 · 7/10 · 6 September 2000]

Since it went straight to video the question of whether it is worth a theatre ticket becomes moot. A black comedy that isn't riotously funny the film does manage to raise questions about gun culture simply by taking it to the comedic extreme.

A few great jokes, some nice performances and a comedic look at a very serious issue make this a film worth a view on video.

Unbelievable

[fideist · 1/10 · 7 July 2000]

According to the government, in the United States there are about 50 million gun owners.

You would think with statistics like that, the Director could have found believable characters and storylines, regardless of which side of the debate he wanted to portray.

OutRAGEous

[Rogue-32 · 8/10 · 10 June 2002]

"It's the Rage" is actually the title of this movie, which I saw the other night on cable, and it's an odd duck of a film, starting out with Jeff Daniels' character shooting a man in his living room. He explains to his horrified wife (Joan Allen) that the man was a burglar, but she discovers, with even more horror, that it's actually her husband's business partner. What the @#^k??! Then, some other characters are introduced, each one crazier than the other (played by Gary Sinese, Robert Forster, Anna Paquin, Giovanni Ribisi, all great). Then, the characters start interacting, in extremely clever, well-written ways. The one thing that unites these loonies is that they're all on the edge and they all have guns. (Is that two things?) Consider the possibilities. Or better yet, see the film.

Geez, no wonder the rest of the world thinks the whole U.S. is nuts!

[wayne-2 · 6/10 · 20 August 2001]

The movie was O.K.- just keep in mind please that most people in the U.S. are not as much of gun nuts as in this movie. Obviously it is satirical, and amplifies a subject to make its point. This, however is not the typical American, Hollywood's opinion notwithstanding.

I can't believe how bad this movie was.

[Xanderus · 1/10 · 19 September 1999]

One of the worst films I've ever seen. Great cast, including, Gary Sinise, Anna Paquin, Giovanni Ribisi, Joan Allen, Jeff Daniels, is totally wasted. However, a great role was also wasted, David Schwimmer could have done so much with his role as a gun crazed homosexual, but instead he was boring and useless. Why does this guy act out of "Friends", or at all?

I don't want to talk about this movie to much, it's just wasting my time. This film totally sucked and DO NOT SEE IT!

Just shoot ME...PLEASE!!

[AEX Sara · 4 September 2002]

Aside from the fact that this movie was obviously gun control propaganda, you just don't care about any of the characters. By the time I got to the end of the movie, I was wishing one of these pathetic characters would just go postal and shoot everyone to put me out of my misery. I can deal with propaganda in the name of good theater, but this is far from it. Prepare to snooze!!

All the Rage is not the rage

[smoore2352 · 1/10 · 11 October 2000]

This movie should be shown at film school as a guideline for how *not* to make a movie. This is a film with an ensemble cast, and it seemed dead-set on making every character interact with each other at some point, whether it made any sense or not. What resulted was a plethora of scenes which had no relevance or effect on the story. The characters were poorly-written and under-developed. The long takes were impressive, but none of that matters if the content is bad. The only redeeming quality in this movie was Gary Sinise's performance. The other actors were either mis-cast (we all know David Schwimmer can only play one part) or just gave cliched, bad performances. This movie had no surprises, tons of plot-holes, sub-plots that went nowhere, confusing scenes that added nothing, and was for lack of a better word, just flat-out stupid.

A complete waste of an otherwise talented cast. Avoid this one.

[rogue7-2 · 1/10 · 7 January 2001]

Even if I agreed with All the Rage's blatant anti-gun agenda (I don't) I would still have to say that it sucks. Its kind of sad too, because I really like most everyone in this movie, but as we all know the best actors in the world cannot save a lame script and ham handed direction. It baffles me how they talked such a talented group of actors into working on this piece of rubbish. Must have been a heck of a sales pitch. Allegedly a comedy, I didn't laugh once while watching All the Rage. The attempts at humour were not only severely unfunny, they were downright embarrassing. To add insult to injury the characters in this film were completely unrealistic and not at all sympathetic. I didn't care about these people at all.

I'm a huge fan of black comedies and given the cast I had high hopes for All the Rage. Unfortunately I was very disappointed. I shouldn't have been surprised, being a direct to video release. It wasn't that I was expecting another Pulp Fiction or Trainspotting, I was just hoping for something entertaining, this film was a complete waste of time.

Getting back to the film's "agenda", I've found that most anti-gun people really know very little about guns and gun owners. All they really know is the heavily distorted misinformation spoon fed them by anti-gun lobbies. What they don't tell you is that 99.99% of gun owners are sane, responsible, safety conscious, good and perfectly normal people. They also don't tell you that in every single state that has passed laws allowing concealed carry (there are 27 at last count), violent crime has dropped by as much as 50%. Whether you, the reader, agree with me or not, just think about it logically. If guns are so evil and the cause of crime and chaos, how is it that over the last 30 years gun ownership has steadily increased, and gun related crime has steadily decreased? If you don't believe look it up yourself at the Department of Justice (DOJ), which is neither pro or anti-gun and therefore impartial.

Again my feelings about the "anti-gun" agenda aside, agenda or no, this is still a very bad movie. Don't waste your time.

I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone, even if they had a gun to my head.

[turboinny · 2/10 · 1 May 2001]

It's amazing to me how such a talented cast could be involved with such a ridiculously bad movie. Yes, guns are bad, but this film almost made me want to go out and buy one just to fire it at my television. The only thing this film made me think seriously about was whether or not I could go back to the video store and return it in time to get something else for free.

One of the worst films of the Toronto Film Festival

[allyjack · 3/10 · 17 September 1999]

One of the worst films I've ever seen at the Toronto Film Festival; this was compared by the program book to Robert Altman's The Player, but plays instead like a rejected TV pilot for a third-rate network. It's a film of big ideas, in particular about the folly of America's obsession with guns; presumably it's this liberal agenda that enticed an astonishing cast, each member of which is as bad here as they've ever been before (Jeff Daniels plays an arrogant businessman who gets away with murder; Joan Allen is the wife who leaves him to work for loopy billionaire Gary Sinise; they and four or five others get intertwined in a web of violence). The film is painfully stilted, relying on a monstrous series of coincidences and improbabilities, with no sense of character or naturalism, evidencing no research into how things actually work or look or feel. Sometimes it seems intended as a black comedy, but it's not remotely funny; it's gimmicky instead of parodic, banal instead of ironic. The film says nothing useful about guns, but almost everything about pretentious amateurism.

Sophmoric anti-gun agenda doesn't ruin this movie.

[jmh2350 · 8/10 · 6 March 2001]

Excellent acting, sly intertwining of modern characters, and escalating suspense make this movie intriguing and very watchable, despite the sophomoric and "in-your-face" anti-gun agenda that is as subtle as a lead balloon.

Even more heavy-handedly preachy than WEST WING

[edgein15 · 5/10 · 4 May 2002]

But at least WEST WING puts its soapbox into the actual dialogue of the show.

When one must resort to snide epilogue subtitles to state its already obvious agenda, you know the effort has failed.

Utter propaganda masquerading as drama.

The film Charleton Heston doesn't want you to see!

[Tolka · 30 January 2001]

It's no accident that posters of Natural Born Killers and Reservoir Dogs decorate the walls of the video rental store. It's no accident that Gary Sinise looked strikingly similar to Bill Gates. It's no accident that Jeff Daniels complains about how much he hated a certain film. ("The plot was ridiculous. Get this: two thieves-- Hunnybunny and Pumpkin, a hitman eating a Hawaiian Burger while he's about to kill people, --I didn't buy it" he mutters.) ...and it's certainly no accident that the opening titles closely resemble those of another socially satiric commentary: Dr. Strangelove.

In a world hyper-saturated with media and mass mayhem, it's certainly no accident that a film like It's the Rage would hit the film scene with a piercing look at America's obsession with the second amendment. Without any regard for 'realism'-- the video clerk replies to Jeff Daniels' criticism with: "It's a movie, it doesn't have to make sense, I found that out"-- ITR follows a group of people through their control-obsessed lives as they single-handedly use and abuse each other. The handgun is the most common link, but there are others. Money, fidelity, television, theft, and isolation also fill the otherwise vacant lives of our nine characters.

The box looks like Magnolia, but what's inside is a very clear and scathing attack on Americans and their firearm addiction. Made in Canada by a first-time director, (and very skillfully at that) it's most directly a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later look at Wayne LaPeirre and his legacy of legal weapons.

Tolka's advice: watch this one with your favorite die hard Republican friend, but do wear a bullet-proof-vest for the heated discussion to follow.

all not there

[unagie · 3/10 · 3 January 2001]

Overall: Slow, but saved by a well paced ending

Outstanding Performances: Joan Allen (as all ways), David Schwimmer & Anna Paquin

Final: Wait till video

Magnolia Meets Glock

[Starbuck-2 · 8/10 · 31 August 2000]

A well-crafted, rhythmic story knitting together a dozen lives (some well-explored, some not-enough) with handguns as the common thread.

Like Short Cuts or Magnolia, the story builds not though a single protagonist/antagonist pair, but through a mosaic of different people. The ensemble cast (especially Joan Allen, Andre Braugher, Gary Sinise, Jeff Daniels and Anna Paquin)is wonderful and except for Allen, all play parts that seem well outside their usual range. Braugher and Daniels especially play parts different from what they've done before and both are convincing. Only an accomplished stage actor like Sinise could have fully developed "Morgan", a character that could too easily have become a charicature; he probably deserved some award nominations for supporting actor for this, and it makes it more poignant seeing him in the mindless commercial pap that dominates his career.

The core theme is how guns, and owning them, affect different personalities. Some changes are the same in all the new gun owners; most are different. While it's clearly an anti-handgun film, I don't find that offensive; it's clear the writer knew actual urban people who obtained handguns and the way urban handgun toters change, sometimes subtlely, sometimes significantly. If you're a member of The Second Amendment Foundation or a survivalist whacko, you won't appreciate the film, but any of the 94% of the population that isn't will relish the tart commentary.

Editing and cinematography are both crisp and add a lot to the story.

This is a very, very good movie in every respect. I recommend it strongly.

Great Cast, Didactic Message, Uninteresting Film

[d_fienberg · 17 February 2001]

All the Rage (or It's the Rage, as it's call on video) has the makings to be one of those great LA ensemble films, a Magnolia or a Shortcuts. Instead, it has the reality of one of those crappy LA ensemble films, a Two Days In the Valley. The film squanders a super cast and a hot button topic and it falls into dogmatic clichés almost instantly. This movie is proof that even if you're politics are in the right place, if you don't give any thought to what you're doing, you can make a mess of things. As a liberal, I found myself actually seeing how this movie could sour people on gun control advocacy and that's certainly not what its purpose was.

All the Rage has no real plot, so there's no point in going into it. There are a handful of one dimensional characters unified by the fact that somewhere in the film's 98 minutes, a gun will change their lives. There's a gay lawyer (Andre Braugher), his jealous boyfriend (David Schwimmer), a businessman (Jeff Daniels), his wife (Joan Allen, an underage klepto (Anna Paquin), her bonkers brother (Giovanni Ribisi), a wealthy eccentric (Gary Sinise), his Hollywood-dreaming assistant (Josh Brolin) and two cops (Bokeem Woodbine and Robert Forster). The reasons why these people all have guns isn't really explained beyond the hardly original idea that guns produce feelings of power. The opening credits, featuring home video style footage of parents, children, and guns intercut with newspaper stories on gun violence offers the hardly subtle suggestion that the role of guns in our society is generational and that people clearly don't take guns and their dangerous possibilities as seriously as they should.

And on a basic ideological level it's impossible for me to argue with All the Rage. Guns are dangerous. I don't think *anybody* would disagree with that. And guns kill people. That's also tough to dispute. And since the film has a dedication at the end, I assume that for the film's writer Keith Reddin, this was a very personal story and message. That's part of why the film's execution is so infuriating for me.

In All the Rage, at least a half dozen guns appear on screen. Five of them kill people within the film's running time. We don't know where anybody got their guns, whether or not they were registered, and whether or not the owners had legal permits to carry their guns. Why not? Because apparently it doesn't matter. Even the guns issued to the police officers are put in an ethically negative light. Clearly, as depicted here, there is no such thing as a legitimately owned gun. While the film has lost a good portion of its audience with this argument, I can at least accept it as a black comedy, rather than an attempt at mandating a position. Where the movie loses me is the total stereotypes of gun owners and the committers of gun violence. The paranoid yuppie business man? Check. Jealous homosexual? Check. Crazy teen? Check. Because none of the characters in the film are portrayed as psychologically balanced, we basically get a situation where only "deviants" have guns. This is fatal for the film because it takes away anything resembling complexity. The use of the gun, as depicted in this film, can never be a rational decision, or certainly not a decision carried out (however rashly) by a rational person. If I were a gunowner who had my gun locked in a safe for defending my home, or for hunting in a safe and legal manner and yet still supported basic controls on guns (waiting periods, ammo restrictions, etc) this film would outrage me. The lack of balance cripples the film's dramatic drive. I didn't even begin to care about these characters or their choices because it was so clear that the decks were stacked against them.

My immediate response was that All the Rage was just badly written. There are extended monologues that are stilted and unilluminating. However, it turns out that Reddin was adapting his own play, which justifies the speachifying. Thus, I'm inclined to blame first time director James D. Stern, who keeps the film claustrophobic is unable to produce any kind of comic momentum in the scenes that are clearly intended to be dark comedy. Additionally, despite an apparent LA setting, the film has no sense of place. It could almost take place in Iowa, but that kind of Midwestern setting would break with the movie's abundant obviousness. Stern is also unable to take advantage of the ample talents of his cast.

In case you weren't keeping score when I mentioned the actors in the film, there are four Oscar nominees (and Jeff Daniels *has* been nominated for two Golden Globe awards for his filmwork), three Emmy nominees (Gary Sinise is in both categories), and Independent Spirit Award nominee Ribisi. What made these very fine thespians do this movie? Well, several of them have colorful characters including Sinise's twitchy computer programmer. Some get to play against type (though Schwimmer's character sounds much too much light a slightly gay Ross). And some get to play leads for a change (for these are really all character actors, rather than A-list stars). Probably the film's script also appealed to some kind of basic Hollywood liberalism and somebody may have been duped into thinking they were doing important work.

Instead the performances fall into three categories: The phoned in performance, the overacting performance, or the "well I've seen that before" performance. In the first group are Braugher, Schwimmer, and Allen, each of whom should know better, though I guess they've gotta eat. In the second category are Sinise and Daniels who both yell a lot in the name of characterization. And finally Anna Paquin is playing the same part as in Hurly Burly, Forster the same part as in Jackie Brown (or else Robert Duvall's part from Falling Down), and Giovanni Ribisi is doing the same demented man-child routine he does in most of his work. Regarding Ribisi, I would have to say that if I hadn't seen The Boiler Room and Saving Private Ryan, I would be truly doubting his talent after all the horrible performances he's turned in.

If you're a liberal Democrat, it's easy to want to support this movie. It makes very clear points about the fact that the United States has become a country where gun violence is both mundane and an epidemic. And yet All the Rage blows all that good will. It makes a complex debate far too childish. Even the Frankenstein monster could have grunted out "Guns... Baaaaaaaad." And that's really all that's happening in this 3/10 film.