Touches You

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Paparazzi is one of those ones that probably sounded pretty silly on paper, but one of the studio execs had a good sense of humour on a morning after getting laid and said "aw hell, green light this just for kicks." It doesn't hurt to have Mel Gibson as a producer either, who also makes the teensiest cameo. The concept is simple: action film star Bo Laramie (Cole Hauser) is harassed by a sleazy hyena pack of determined celebrity photographers, until they take it one step too far, resulting in tragedy. Bo then plays the art imitating life card, goes all vigilante on them and quite literally hunts each one down and kills them. A synopsis like that has to illicit a dark chuckle from anyone who reads it, and you'd think the resulting film would be oodles of fun, but they've somewhat played it safe. A concept this ridiculous should be over the top, reach for the stars insane, a hard R black comedy Death Wish set in Hollywood, if you will. What we get is something more on the glossy side, the filmmakers dipping their toe into the pond of potential, yet never saying 'fuck it' and diving right in. The paparazzos are played to the heights of hilarity by a solid scumbag troupe: Tom Sizemore is so perfect as their a-hole ringleader, just a dime piece of a casting choice. Daniel Baldwin looks seriously haggard, while Tom Hollander and Kevin 'Wainegro' Gage round out this quartet. Dennis Farina is fun as a sharp, shrewd Detective who gets wise to Bo's act as well. It's all serviceable, and yet I wish it went that extra mile to give us something downright shocking and memorable. Perhaps they should have reworked the script, brought in a wild card director and gone the indie route. Oh well.

This is a cheesy revenge flick produced by Mel Gibson. The film shows nasty paparazzi hounding an upright, decent family man (Cole Hauser) who's just become a major movie star. He fights back after his family is assaulted by these lowlife journalists. Mel Gibson clearly has some issues with the media, and this film feels like vicarious wish fulfillment. Unfortunately, it isn't very good. The PG-13 rating limits the violence making the whole thing feel rather lame. The acting is mediocre and the characters all one-note. Cheesy but not enjoyable. Watch only if bored.Overall 3/10

First off, I would like to congratulate Cole Hauser as Bo for delivering the worst performance I've seen in years. Thanks for completely wasting my life, Cole. I absolutely found it completely repulsive when his son had just been in a coma, and when one of the employees asks Bo how it's going, and Bo responds with a simple "alright." Are you kidding me? After that, I was almost convinced this was a comedy, after I laughed the entire way through the rest.The next award for biggest numb skull goes to the Paparazzi guy who was driven off the road, and was hanging off the cliff, when Bo tries to save his life. I'm not going to give spoilers, but I'll just ask you this: What would happen if someone was trying to save you when you were hanging off the edge of a cliff, and while they're in the process of doing it, you make even more threats if they don't save you? Yeah, they'd probably drop you.Why make such a completely mindless film? You'd think the filmmakers would have some sort of self respect not to embarrass themselves with such a piece of slop. I knew the biggest mistake of my weekend was picking this up. I was so hypnotized by this movie's stupidness that I thought I would never see good acting again. Oddly enough, the performance of the century and the joke of the century came in the same year. The joke: Cole Hauser as Bo. The greatest performance I've ever seen that came out that same year: Tom Cruise as Vincent in the movie "Collateral." Definitely worst acting, dumbest plot, and cheesiest action scenes I've ever seen.

This time, the critics have opened their trench coats to expose their hypocrisies! When a film this good—that is, better than average—gets panned so badly by so many Hollywood critics, you have to wonder what made the critics sulk. Critics, like paparazzi, are parasites: few of them have ever created anything; instead, they live off the inspiration of others. But, as sophisticated readers and movie lovers know, the relationship between critics and artists is extremely complex: the artists need critics to expose their work and, sometimes, even interpret it.But in this case, perhaps understandably (because murder is involved), the real critics working for US media (see Rotten Tomatoes) have responded to having the spotlight shone on their own profession by trying to bury this movie under piles of negative rhetoric.Celebrity photographers and the tabloids they supply are our visual age's personality critics. Using photo essays and headlines, they can either tear down or glorify a star, just as print critics can alter our perceptions of written, painted, or performed art.The Hollywood critics and the paparazzi walk, philosophically, hand and hand, so perhaps they feel protective of each other. And here, in PAPARAZZI, is some evidence of a mutual-protection society in action: a film that is competently acted, written, and directed, is demonized. Suddenly, in this age of senselessly violent movies that get called "artistic," "bold," etc., a movie in which parasitic photographers get a little more than what's coming to them is persecuted for violating a point of the old Hays Code (i.e. "Revenge (by murder) in modern times shall not be justified.") This movie is sharply satiric, exciting, and satisfying, and there is very little graphic violence. How could it fairly be given 1 or even 0 stars unless the issuing critic is angry about the spotlight being swung in his or her direction? There have been plenty of gory films and revenge movies. When the "victims" of the "hero/vigilante" are sexually twisted stalkers or evil government agents, do critics get so high-minded about the "message" violence in cinema sends to the audience? (Maybe a better question is: how dare a Hollywood insider, such as Mr. Gibson, laughingly throw a little hot sand in the out of control publicity machine?) By trashing this generally entertaining film, the community of critics have made it a must-see for the controversial questions they and the film raise.(Note: key elements of this movie's plot and themes can also be seen in the 1969 film, THEATER OF BLOOD, starring Vincent Price. I wonder how that was received by critics of its time.)