Camille (D- or .5/4 stars)
Never did I ever think I'd ever see a movie with James Franco and/or Sienna Miller in it and think it was awful. Well, that day has come. And the movie is 'Camille', a straight-to-DVD jobby directed by Gregory Mackenzie. When we first meet our protagonist Camille (Miller), she's a bubbly, kinda-annoying, well-tanned, bleach-blond chatterbox who can't believe she's marrying local ex-con, Silas (James Franco). She thinks things are super, but is oblivious to the fact that Silas CAN'T STAND HER. All she is, to him, is a ticket out of jail; as her uncle (Scott Glenn) is the town sheriff who released him for his wedding. Still, they marry, she's over-the-moon, & they head off down the road on his bike (and her sidecar) for Niagara Falls; her dream honeymoon destination.
But the 1st sign (to her) that Silas isn't happy occurs when they have a huge blow-out at a roadside diner. That is where they meet a cowboy (played by the now deceased David Carradine); a man who owns a team of vibrantly-painted rodeo horses. His presence & the sage words he tells them will prove prophetic for these newlyweds by the end of the film. The two of them head down the road; Camille wanting her dream honeymoon, Silas hoping to escape to Canada thereafter. But a traffic accident halts them. And though Camille thought that this honeymoon would change Silas for the better, little did she know that the only thing that could possibly work them would be ... their deaths. That isn't really a spoiler. Hopefully, I'll dissuade you from having to see this in the next paragraph, anyway.
I don't even know where to begin. The story is absolutely crazy. The look of the film is bland. The lead characters are unlikeable (she can't shut up, he's moody-to-a-fault). The acting is only so-so. But I completely blame the script, not the particular performances. The movie also has no idea what it wants to be. Its part road movie, part romance, part black comedy, part nightmare (figuratively). When I said that the story is lame ... I mean that I loathed it. Without going into specifics, a characters dies (sort of), they start decaying (but they don't realize this as it's happening), the newlyweds start to love one another (as certain death looms ahead), and then ... in the most absurd climax of a movie (yes, that includes The Orphan) ... a double suicide via leaping horse ends the movie.
I just ... have nothing more to say.
But the 1st sign (to her) that Silas isn't happy occurs when they have a huge blow-out at a roadside diner. That is where they meet a cowboy (played by the now deceased David Carradine); a man who owns a team of vibrantly-painted rodeo horses. His presence & the sage words he tells them will prove prophetic for these newlyweds by the end of the film. The two of them head down the road; Camille wanting her dream honeymoon, Silas hoping to escape to Canada thereafter. But a traffic accident halts them. And though Camille thought that this honeymoon would change Silas for the better, little did she know that the only thing that could possibly work them would be ... their deaths. That isn't really a spoiler. Hopefully, I'll dissuade you from having to see this in the next paragraph, anyway.
I don't even know where to begin. The story is absolutely crazy. The look of the film is bland. The lead characters are unlikeable (she can't shut up, he's moody-to-a-fault). The acting is only so-so. But I completely blame the script, not the particular performances. The movie also has no idea what it wants to be. Its part road movie, part romance, part black comedy, part nightmare (figuratively). When I said that the story is lame ... I mean that I loathed it. Without going into specifics, a characters dies (sort of), they start decaying (but they don't realize this as it's happening), the newlyweds start to love one another (as certain death looms ahead), and then ... in the most absurd climax of a movie (yes, that includes The Orphan) ... a double suicide via leaping horse ends the movie.
I just ... have nothing more to say.