Running Time: 1 hr 46 min’s – Comedy, Drama, Mystery

Starring Bill Murray, Jessica Lange, & Sharon Stone – Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Ran-Dizzle (Host)

Synopsis we don’t need no stinkin’ Synopsis.

(Synopsis) Bill Murray plays Don Johnston…no not Don Johnson, Don Johnston, a middle aged man who has become emotionally withdrawn from life. When his current girlfriend leaves him for wanting more out of life then just being where they are. He discovers a letter in the mail, a letter that opens a new world for Don, who seems uninterested to discover that he might have a son. His mystery loving friend Winston convinces him to go back through time and relive his past with his 5 ex-girlfriends to discover who the mother of his child might be.

This movie was one of those catches your eye on a rack of a movie rental store and you walk around thinking would this be a good film? If you are into movies that involve alot of open minded questioning and lot of guessing then yes this would be a movie to watch, Mind you I am not saying it’s a good movie, but one to watch. If you don’t like those style of movies and expect one with an actual ending instead of a proverbial hand job without the pay off then DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE…

Bill Murray plays a middle aged Don Juan where are you now character, his previous girlfriend leaves him, discovers a mysterious note from an ex that claims he might have a son. He reads this letter at his friend Winston’s house (Now to me I think this might be one of those really…Winston moments? You couldn’t have chosen a better name like Ray or Egon) and reads the letter. Now Winston feels this is what Don needs to get out of his coma from life.
Winston develops a plan and some horrible mixed cd’s and convinces Don to take this trip to relive his past and try and find the mother of his child. First he meets up with Sharon Stone’s character Laura who plays an Single mother in a bath that goes no where and a daughter who makes this movie a little enjoyable by walking around naked, (Please be 18, please be 18, please be 18) once he discovers she is not the one with a boy he moves on, to the next girlfriend, to the next girl friend to the next…until he gets to the one who has passed.

To me the worst part about this movie is the awkward silences…and horrible song that Winston put on that disc. I think John says it best by there is no real score to the movie, and therefore makes the movie harder to relate to because there is no direction from music as to let the view know…of something is going on, he thinks it might be her….no all he looks for is a pink typewriter, pink stationary. Oh lets not forget the ending…
Did the writer/director forget to put it in? Did the Editor mess up and so they said fuck it leave it out? I sat there going THIS CAN NOT BE LIKE THIS….he just spins around in a circle looking everywhere to see this kid look back at him and continues to drives off…

I read on the back of the cover of this box, it was to bring back Bill Murray’s Comedy. This is no Stripes, Ghostbusters, Zombieland….I felt robbed I think everyone can agree with me on it.

1 ‘s

Big JD

When searching for answers in life, maybe we should just understand that some unanswered questions make us who we are.

If you are a type of movie watcher that requires a solid payoff ending then this is NOT the movie you want to invest your time in.  If you like to formulate your own answers then you might want to give this one a go.  I usually like both types… sometimes.  In the case of Broken Flowers I was totally thrown off by the ending.  If the rest of the movie was strong enough to handle that type of ending I would have been ok.  But I found myself “struggling” to get through the movie only to have no payoff at the end.

The acting wasn’t bad.  Bill Murray played Don Johnston as a melancholy older type Don Juan bachelor that suddenly had no direction in his life.  I however did not see this as classic Bill Murray.  Maybe Rushmore Bill Murray but when compared this character Don falls short.

Don’s friend Winston (nice name choice by the way), played by Jeffrey Wright played the pushy “I want to fix your life” friend to perfection.  He had me chuckling at times, but nothing as much as to save the movie.

The 5 broken flowers all did a decent job in their portrayal as ex-girlfriends that once had that certain something he was attracted to but now they have all moved on to other things.  My first theory on the title of the movie was the fact that he was “Broken” and these women were all his “flowers”.  Until I started to see the myriad of woman he dated.  This brought me to my second theory.  These women were “Broken” in their own way and they represented “Flowers”.  Without the attention from Don Johnston (water) they withered and even one died.  He had even lost himself so, in a way he was broken as well.

There were many long take scenes as well as Reaction shots, Dead air, and slow fade out scenes with very little score to help you forget you are watching someone’s life unfold.  Some director’s forget that our “real lives” are pretty boring and when they try to capture that drab snippet of life we as the audience are left feeling “un-entertained”.   Don’t get me wrong, following a pink envelope from the Post Office to the main character’s house was fabulous and super entertaining.  Ha!  Right.

When he got into his travels the movie started to move along.  I really didn’t care for the lack of score, nor did I care for the song selection.  Winston can’t burn travel cd’s worth nothin’!  Probably my most memorable moment is seeing a unrecognizable Sharon Stone with Daughter (Alexis Dziena).  The daughter’s Lolita character surprised me with full frontal nudity.  But not as surprising as later in the movie we see Bill Murray RUN!  He was bookin’ it!  I hadn’t seen him run since Space Jam and that was only at half speed compared to his jaunt in this movie.

In all this movie probably would piss you off so, I cannot rightly recommend it to anyone.  Seeing Bill Murray’s real life son was a nice Easter egg but this movie had so much boring in it nothing could save it.

Nudity Bonus:  Alexis Dziena – Lolita (38:00)(Full)

1.5‘s

Willie Good-Cook

-Broken Director-

Where do I begin. Ok. This movie was kinda of artsy for me. I think the long scenes where they are just recording no dialog, no music, no nothing, just Bill Murray doing things around houses, were very boring. The transitions seemed really bad and I think the overall direction was very poor. If this film had been done with a decent director (or maybe editor) then I think it would have done very well and we might have heard of it before Randizzle found it on the 5o cent rental rack at movie gallery.

The cast did a pretty good job. I thought Murray’s interactions with these 5 women and there families was priceless. The full frontal daughter did have me pretty amused. I also enjoyed his scenes with his buddy Winston. And the scene when he wakes up next to Laura and she doesn’t remember how he got there had me laughing.

Mostly this movie bored, but it did have shining spots. Ending blows.

-Suggestions- Slap Randizzle for picking movies off 50cent rack.

2‘s

TO WILL: It was 1.00 Favorites and it was at Family Video, Movie Gallery died a long time ago…gah.

For Those that have seen this movie.  What did you think?