Overall Rating Awesome: 20% Worth A Look: 28% Average: 44% Pretty Bad: 8% Total Crap: 0% 1 review, 19 user ratings

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War of the Roses

List Price:		$9.98
Price:		$9.98
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by Chris Parry

"Like a cockfight, only containing actual cocks instead of roosters."

The War of the Roses is a funny flick. Like watching a slow motion car wreck rolling end over end along the blacktop, it's an expeience that's enjoyable not because you can relate, but because you can't. Watching these two prize arseholes tear pieces out of each other is the sort of thing that'll leave you feeling better about your own life... but then, so is an episode of Jerry Springer.

Michael Douglas plays an arrogant lawyer who deserves what he gets. Kathleen Turner plays a bitchy layer's wife who deserves what she gets. Our fun is in watching them both get it.

But is it a great movie? Is this a story that had to be told? Is this the finest hour of all concerned?

Nope. Nope. Nope. It's a trainwreck. It's a playground buddy's fibula, sticking through his skin after he fell of his bike. It's your turd swirling down the S-bend of the toilet.

Put simply, War of the Roses is something so heinous, you have to watch it. You can't help it. It's there. There's Kathleen Turner offering her womanhood to Danny DeVito (who'd probably be just the right height to officially class any record of such an encounter as midget porn). There's Michael Douglas pissing in the main course. There's the German lady from Bagdad Cafe... serving no purpose whatsoever.

But what does it all mean?!

Well, my guess is we're supposed to watch this and make up our minds never to repeat it in our own lives. Thankfully, I don't have a collection of dog statuettes to throw, or a classic car to destroy, or a chandelier to swing off. Unfortunately, I don't have an ex-gymnast wife either, but you take the bad with the good.

Director De Vito also takes the easy route with the storyline, opting to narrate the whole thing rather than portraying every event on screen and letting us come to our own conclusions. De Vito's ongoing relation of the tale to a client in his law office is drawn out and distracting, not to mention completely out of pace with the rest of the film. It's like speeding to a green light and then stopping dead at the last minute as it goes red, over and over again.

Performances are fine all round, Douglas and Turner have the chemistry going on, but just when you thikn they might get a little bit human and show us that we really can feel for them, they behave like babboons and put themselves back in 'who cares' land.

A very watchable movie to be sure, but not one that you necessarily need to own. Watch it one Sunday on Superstation, enjoy the spectacle and forget about it.

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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=2924&reviewer=1
originally posted: 07/16/02 09:47:47

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User Comments

12/11/09 Dane Youssef A star-studded comic horrorshow. Smart, sharp, biting, pitch-black & UNFLINCHING. Must-see. 5 stars

9/20/08 Duke of Omnium It succeeds too well: the film's nastiness overwhelms the comedy 3 stars

3/16/08 Pamela White how marriage is NOT supposed to be 4 stars

3/28/07 fools♫gold It's DEFINITELY a movie anyone can relate to: for it's about daily life. 4/5 or 5/5. 5 stars

8/05/06 nicolecrom2678 Funny, sometimes divorce is really ugly 4 stars

7/26/06 Sepi53 Kathleen Turner as her best! 4 stars

4/28/06 Sugarfoot The perfect movie, for those who don't have dates on Valentines Day. 5 stars

8/31/05 ES DeVito direction is interesting, he can take inane ideas & breath surprising life into them 4 stars

7/01/05 Mrs Coleman That was such a great and funny movie 4 stars

7/16/02 Charles Tatum Too bitter, no laughs, mean spirited 3 stars

7/16/02 Klute Tough to relate to these two at all. 3 stars

4/04/02 Priscilla Postlethwaite It took BASIC INSTINCT to revive Douglas's carreer. DeVito & Turner never really recovered. 2 stars

4/03/02 R.W. Welch A little toooo vicious to be really funny, a matter of taste. 3 stars

3/24/02 Butterbean Silly, but not at all unrealistic. Douglas and Turner always had great chemistry. 4 stars

2/01/02 Meredith Harshaw For movie highlight, pissing on fish edges out apparent dog-eating. Never a good sign! 2 stars

10/25/01 The $1.98 Pyramid A Vicious but respectable war gone into a fatal childish bickering. Silly. 3 stars

2/16/01 Ray McCoy Funny black comedy about the extremeties of divorce. Michael Douglas does a fine job 4 stars

11/21/00 Monday Morning One of the best black comedies ever...simply hilarious. 5 stars

1/14/00 Noel Engerer Great black comedy - don't miss! 5 stars

IF YOU'VE SEEN THIS FILM, RATE IT!
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USA 02-Dec-1989 (R) UK N/A Australia 02-Apr-1990

Directed by Danny DeVito Written by Michael Leeson Cast Michael Douglas Kathleen Turner Danny DeVito G.D. Spradlin Peter Donat

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