Epäonnen konnat

Jälleen kerran loppu nosti tämän rikoskomedian keskinkertaista arvioita ja pakotti minut jopa harkitsemaan neljää tähteä, mutta se ei olisi reilua muita arvioimiani elokuvia kohtaan. Simon Pegg on näytellyt parempiakin rooleja ja David Schwimmer on minulle ikuisesti Ross Geller... (20.12.2007)

Jean-Baptiste has seen a lot of movies, has tons of ideas that he puts into good practice and again, after Dead End, proves that he’s certainly got something in him. Simon and David are an excellently matched pair of nice guys and Natascha certainly doesn’t spoil anything for them. At the beginning it seems that the only glitch is the screenplay that seemed to be living up to the title of the movie. But, starting with the scene with the cesspool, the black-humor, hair-brained storyline becomes the main powerhouse. In the end, nothing about Big Nothing is miraculous or even original, but it is first-rate fun. It reminded me of the beautiful experience I had watching Shallow Grave, although they don’t have very much in common really. The sort of movie that you expect big nothing from and then, hey presto, it turns out to be a very pleasant experience. (20.05.2008)

A funny fable made by a Frenchman in a slightly British style with an atypical cast. Half crime-drama, half comedy, with a hearty dose of black humour. Everybody betrays everybody, but in a very unstylish and looser way. It's probably clear to everyone that this act launched Alice Eve's career, but it may not be so incredibly clear that she's already here. A little more than her colleagues, after all. (01.02.2017)

A rather crazy film that could be characterized as a comedy with a crime plot, which uses violence as an entertaining element in the style of Tarantino. It has a sense of influence from the American independent scene and it could perhaps be compared to the film 11:14. A script plaything, where multiple plot lines are intertwined, the characters in the film come up with a series of both transparent and completely opaque dirty tricks, and the whole thing is not stylistically clean. However, the film's entertainment value cannot be denied. The biggest draw is Simon Pegg, but the rest are decent as well. The downside, as I mentioned earlier, is the inability to maintain a clean style, so the film sometimes plays on sentimentality through the character of the main protagonist, and some scenes are unnecessarily bloody for a film that presents itself as a family comedy for the majority of its runtime. Overall impression: 75%. (01.03.2009)

A perfect example that even a blend of comedy and thriller can make a great and entertaining film. The filmmakers went all out and had all the characters swimming in so much sh*t (meant literally) that maybe more could have been wrung out of it in the end, but it's still more than enough. Well, consider this, a simple plan to rob a horny reverend goes spectacularly wrong, the priest turns out to be a purveyor of the most hardcore porn, his wife is a murdering psychopath and so is her secret lover – now we are in for a really crazy and murderous story, and that’s the case. Big Nothing may never make it to the big leagues, its story is perhaps a little too contrived and rather shabby at times, and ultimately it doesn't bring much new to the table, but it's nonetheless a royally funny, reasonably morbid, and beautifully fluid film with an excellent cast. If I wanted to look for flaws, I'm sure I'd find plenty, but this comedy just doesn't deserve it. (16.08.2012)