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Overall Rating : 2.5/10
Directed By : Monika Mitchell
John Cassini (Man's Best Friend)
Molly Parker (Deadwood (TV) )
Rene Rivera (Desert Blue)
Jennifer Beals (The Prophecy II)
Supplied By : MTI Home Video
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : Feb.14, 2006
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| PLOT Max Matteo (John Cassini), a talented actor, can’t seem to catch a break. Despite his skills, Max is always second choice to a producer’s nephew or a more marketable “name”.But where talent can’t beat the system, ambition can. His frustration comes to a boiling point and he takes matters- and people’s lives- into his own hands. His extreme choices bring him the success he desires and a girlfriend who is too good to be true. With an undercover, wannabe thespian cop in his trail, and a guilty conscience weighing him down, he must come to terms with the unorthodox choices he has made on his relentless road to success. |
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| THE REVIEW BREAK A LEG follows a down on his luck actor names Max Matteo. It seems that Max always somehow misses out on all the parts he auditions for, whether it be to a producer's nephew or quite simple just the next charismatic actor to come along. It is when one day Max snaps that his life suddenly changes. Max takes the term "Break a Leg" to a literal sense, when one day he breaks the leg of a young actor who is one notch ahead of him in getting a role on a TV show in which Max desires to be on. After the attack the victim is somehow crushed by a nearby car rendering him dead. Now with the competition dead Max finally gets his big break and he begins living the life of luxury almost as he is in someone else's shoes. Life is better for Max and so are the movie roles that are being offered to him, which means stiffer competition. Max does not want to lose his star power so he does the only thing he can think of, and that is take out that competition with brute force! When detectives get suspicious, Max Matteo's fast life abruptly comes to an end when it has all caught up with him. As interesting as the plot and story may seem, I was greatly disappointed in how it all was played out. First and foremost, the plot does sound much more like a thriller and that is just how MTI Home Video is choosing to promote it, they have chosen to promote this as a "Dark Comedy/Thriller" Well, Dark Comedy/Thriller it is not, in fact i'd say that this movie really has no place on the website, but since I have already started so be it. This movie is not the worst film I have ever seen, but it is certainly not the best either, but there are a few points of the film that make it watchable. I thought it was sort of nice to get an inside peek inside of the head of an actor, it reminds you just how self centered some of them are. But this film's main intension is to be somewhat of a comedy spoof and not the thrilling film it is pushed as and frankly I did not find it all that funny all. Each time the violence would escalate, the camera seems to always cut away quickly so we rarely see much of anything that happens, and also the director chooses to show the sequences as if Max where dreaming them up which is kind of odd when it turns out that he really commits the acts. The overall look and direction made me feel as if I were watching a cable tv series rather than a feature film, and with all of the cameos by the bigger named stars such as Eric Roberts, Jennifer Beals and more, will likely lead the viewer to take the film a lot less serious than they already are....too much talent wasted in too many useless cameos. The acting in BREAK A LEG is average, John Cassini as the lead character Max, in a times entertaining but with this story being so uneven it is really hard to relate to him, which is what I believe was intended. Perhaps my favorite performance from the film came from Rene Rivera as Detective Sanchez, he somehow seems to be genuine in this role and does a great job of sort of slipping into two people at once as he goes undercover as a budding actor in order to nail Matteo. Other good performances come from the many pointless cameos, most notably Beals and Roberts, but are far too short to be memorable. |
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| GORE
METER N/A |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 1/10 Not much to mention, it leaves me to wonder why I mention scores at all. Some occasional Jazz with some trance mixed in for one particular scene. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM Not the movie you'd believe it to be. I was quite disappointed, I expected a dark edgy film but instead got a film about a bunch of whiny actors who can't get work. It is an ok film but as a non horror/thriller film it is not really all too entertaining. |
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