Powerful

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

"Scorpion Spring" is worth watching for an eclectic bunch of familiar faces, and some good bits, comic and dramatic. As written and directed by Brian Cox (not to be confused with the actor of the same name), it's basically a routine B road movie / criminal on the lam story. Patrick McGaw is Zac, travelling from NYC to LA who runs into trouble in the Southwest, starting with getting his wallet stolen. Fate soon throws him together with super smarmy French actor Denis Brabant (the always fantastic Alfred Molina, who walks away with the movie), and soon after that, lowlife bad guy Astor (Esai Morales), who has a woman, Nadia (Angel Aviles), in tow. It doesn't take too long for Zac to realize that Astor is bad news, but he's too concerned with Nadia's well being to want to take a powder. Meanwhile, there are other story threads involving characters being tracked down by a border patrol officer (Ruben Blades), a sheriff (Kevin Tighe), and a somewhat dubious lawman (Miguel Sandoval). This is the kind of thing where the twisty plot would require the viewer to pay attention, not that it would probably make much sense if people took the time to scrutinize the script. In any event, this is a very slick looking and well photographed film, that does, as mentioned previously, generate some laughs. McGaw and Molina make for an awfully unlikely comedy duo, but the flamboyant Molina and straight man McGaw do have chemistry. A word of warning to the unaware, though, that if they are watching this for Matthew McConaughey, he only appears towards the end (he *does* make the most of his brief screen time, though). Also popping up in enjoyable bits are John Doe of the group X as Tighes' deputy, the always amusing Richard Edson as a gregarious service station owner, Tony Genaro as McConaugheys' thuggish associate, and musician / actor Tito Larriva as a bartender. This moves along, and kills time, well enough, but nothing about is too remarkable. Five out of 10.

I don't understand why the other comments focus on McConaughey. He has never been a very interesting film actor. The best part of this movie is the writing and the wit. Alfred Molina and Patrick McGaw make an unusual comic duo, definitely not stock types. Although one can't say their characters are well developed that doesn't make them any less funny.The version I saw was on HDNET and had subtitles for the Spanish dialog, so that was certainly not a problem. The use of Spanish gives it more authenticity. A very underrated movie, judging by the unusually low score IMDb members have given it. I thought it was fun and interesting and worth a 7 at least. A lot of slick movies with higher scores and making big money at the box office are much less interesting.

There are some nice shots in this film, it catches some of the landscapes with such a beautiful light, in fact the cinematography is probably it's best asset.But it's basically more of a made for TV movie, and although it has a lot of twists and turns in the plot, which keeps it quite interesting viewing, there are no subtitles and key plot developments are unveiled in Spanish, so non Spanish speakers will be left a little lost.I had it as a Xmas gift, as it's a family trait to work through the films of a actor we find talented, and Matthew Mconaughey was just awesome in "A Time to kill" , and the "The Newton Boys " so I expressed I wanted to see more of his work.However although it says on the DVD box it is a Matthew Mconaughey film and uses this as a marketing ploy, he has a few lines and is on screen for not very minutes at the end of the film, he is basically an extra and he doesn't exactly light up the screen while he is on, so die hard fans, really not worth it from that point of view.The films star though, Patrick McGaw is great though and very easy on the eye, and his character is just so nice and kind and caring, a true saint of a guy, he'd be well written into a ROM com.So for true Mcconaughey acting brilliance of the ones I've seen, I'd recommend, "A Time to kill" , "The Newton Boys " "Frailty", "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", "Edtv" and "Amistad" and avoid too "Larger Than Life" and "Angels in the Outfield" unless you feel like a kids film or have kids around as neither of these are indicative of his talent, but are quite amusing films for children, again MM is really nothing more that a supporting artist with just a few if any lines.As for Scorpion Springit's not a bad film but it also isn't screen stealing either.

Rented the movie to see McConaughey, instead sat through this entire movie, only to view the actor for the last 15 minutes of the movie.The content and acting leaves a little to be desired. Seems like something that you would see at a high school amateur video viewing.