Movie Review

Six Ways to Sunday (1999)

EW's GRADE
F

Details Rated: R; Genres: Drama, Mystery and Thriller; With: Deborah Harry and Norman Reedus

There's a certain breed of self-consciously offbeat indie comedy whose snail-paced rhythms are at once inept and curiously vain. In Six Ways to Sunday you can practically go out for popcorn between the beats of a scene, yet the slovenly, lurching tempo becomes the filmmaker's method of showcasing every boho-absurdist cliche he can cobble together. In this deadly fusion of Spanking the Monkey and GoodFellas, Harold, played by newcomer Norman Reedus (or is that Ewan DiCaprio?), starts out as a gawky 18-year-old misfit but grows up fast when he goes to work for a local gangster (joke: The wiseguy is Jewish!). It's hard to say what's more ludicrous: the scrawny hero's ability to pummel the crap out of professional outlaws three times his size, or his cutesy oedipal relationship with his fawning, treacherous mom (played by Blondie's Deborah Harry, channeling Cathy Moriarty at her blowsiest). F

Originally posted Mar 26, 1999 Published in issue #478 Mar 26, 1999 Order article reprints
You Might Also Like

Add your comment

The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. An asterisk * indicates a required field.

500 characters remaining
Advertisement