1
(evil preachers and thug Bible salesmen)
3
(violence, blood, sexuality, nudity, strong language, glorified drug use)
2
(avoid this one unless you love criminal on the run comedies)
"Love and a .45" is easily one of the worst movies I own. So why do I own it? Because it’s included with a movie I love: "Cube." When I bought the latter I noticed the DVD looked like it was double-sided. Thinking it was probably the pan & scan version of the movie I put it in just out of curiosity. What should I find but "Love and a .45!" I was initially very excited. A secret, hidden, free movie? How fun is that?
Have you ever found what you thought was gold but turned out to be nothing more than a rectangular pile of donkey dung? Nah, me neither, but I image it to be something akin to this experience. I barely even made it to the end of the movie. What was that "Futurama" line? “That was so bad I think you just gave me cancer!”
What’s so bad about it? For starters I dislike the premise. The heroes are criminals running from more criminals. Thievery is okay as long as you’re a nice guy about it? Crime, drugs, evil preachers, more glorified crime, evil cops (everybody’s bad but the robbers, I guess), and parents that push drugs as the way to experience love: not my recipe for an enjoyable story idea.
Watty is a young criminal -- convenience store robber to be exact -- who wants to propose to his girlfriend. He has borrowed the money for a ring from the evil preacher I mentioned, and now the lender wants his payback. The problem is Watty doesn’t have it as of yet. So, in desperation, he plans a heist to cover his debt, but it goes bad thanks to his high-strung partner. He and Star have to take to the road when they kill a couple of cops who show up to shake them down for the robbery.
Now a pair of cop killers, Watty and his wife-to-be aim to escape to Mexico if they can just avoid a pair of murderous drug-lord lackeys hot on their tails and Watty's violently insane former partner in crime. They just can’t seem to shake the criminal lifestyle nor the threat of death that lurks on their doorstep.
I guess this movie is mostly a humorous drama, and I suppose it has some merit there. Despite not liking the movie I did find myself caring about what happened to the main characters to some extent. Beyond that, though I can’t really say much good about it. The action is poorly staged, and the comedy is not funny. Keep in mind this is coming from someone who doesn't get into druggie comedy much and is spoiled on the action choreography of masters like Chan and Lee. I'm hard to impress on both counts as a result.
Gil Bellows hasn't done much that has ever stood out to me except for a small role in Shawshank Redemption, but he’s the star here. I don’t particularly enjoy his performance, but neither do I hate it. Renee Zellweger is decent as Star the costar, but again I’m not all that impressed. Rory Cochrane is the one performance that actually stands out as good. He’s crazy and intense and pulls it off. I never would have guessed he and Speed from "CSI Miami" are the same actor. Peter Fonda puts in a short appearance. He can’t not be good even if the scene he’s in drags and is distasteful for its blessing on drug use. Jeffrey Combs and Jace Alexander play the lackeys. I didn't care for them much. And Rev Horton Heat makes a cameo.
Morality
This is one of those movies with so much strong language it becomes more annoying than offensive. Can they go two sentences without saying the "F" word? Occasionally, but they’ll make up for it with a string of them in the third sentence.
There’s a good bit of sexuality and sexually explicit dialogue. One scene features several topless women dancing in a bar. Watty and Star get frisky a couple of times though we don't see much of what they're doing. There is some additional sexuality in the DVD extras.
It’s violent and bloody as well. Not only does the camera focus on the person getting shot or stabbed, it often lingers on the bloody, twitching corpse.
Not only is there drug use shown and implied but it’s looked on as a positive, or at very least harmless, thing.
Spirituality
I didn't pick up on anything particularly spiritual here, at least nothing positive (drugs seem to be the path to “true” spirituality). It's possible I slept through it. I get the impression here that morality is an abstract. Watty robs a store which, intentional or not, leads to the murder of an innocent girl followed by the murder of a couple of cops even if a case can be made that the deaths themselves were more a result of self-defense, yet the viewer is led to like him because he's a nice guy who genuinely cares for certain other people (mainly his fiance). Sorry, but if you go robbing stores at gunpoint I don't much care how nice a guy you are or whether or not you really intend to hurt someone, I want you stopped.
Religious elements are another matter. As I mentioned, the main villain here is an evil preacher. He shouts the praises of God on TV while acting as a crime lord behind the scenes. His thugs are Bible salesmen. I'm not the type to call for a ban or boycott as a result of someone thinking it's funny or an appropriate social commentary to have an evil preacher (my appreciation for "Futurama," at least in the early days, should prove I'm not above having a laugh at the expense of religion including my own), but that doesn't mean I'm going to alsways appreciate such elements especially when accompanied by other objectionable material and not balanced out with any other positive elements.
Final Thoughts
I don't know if I would go so far as to say I am offended by this movie, at least not deeply, I just don't appreciate the evil drug-lord preacher and thug Bible salesmen along with the glorification of crime and drugs. Even without taking my disapproval of the content into account the movie drags for the most part and much of the acting isn’t that great. I can't recommend this one unless you just really like criminal-lovers-on-the-run type movies.
Buying Guide
As unimpressed as I am with the movie, the "Love and a .45" DVD is not bad at all. My copy is quite possibly a production flaw and is included on the flip side of my "Cube" DVD (see that guide for more info). Not all "Cube" DVD's include this movie.
There are 2 DVD versions with one saying “widescreen” at the top and the other not. There is no HD offering as of this writing.
While nobody has bothered to get into much detail in their listings or reviews everything I've seen suggests that all the DVD versions are exactly the same aside from the packaging with the obvious exception of the the "Cube" release essentially (if unofficially) being a double-feature.
Final Recommendation:
Whatever I may think of the movie itself, there is some creativity in the DVD design that I wish more movies would utilize. The extras aren't numerous, but they aren't bad if you're a fan. I don't see anything that sets one DVD apart from the others so just get whatever is cheapest. I'll include a link to the "Cube" DVD since that is technically what I'm covering in my guide, but I must caution you that most of the comments I've seen from people flipping their disc over to see if their copy includes "Love and a .45" say that they didn't get it. So chances are very slim that you'll actually get both movies.
The Cube DVD is a single disc offering with a movie on either side.
Video
1.85 NA widescreen:
It's pretty clean and decently sharp. It does have a fair amount of grain. Unfortunately it's non-anamorphic which means if you're watching on a widescreen TV the image doesn't fill the screen.
Audio
2.0 Dolby:
The sound is clear but not as strong as it should be. It sounds moderately full which is helped by the rear channels having a decent amount of fill in them.
Packaging
The case is standard plastic. There is no indication whatsoever than any movie other than "Cube" is included.
The interface shows a little creativity, especially on the chapter selection screen. It features a old TV set. The play and menu options are the large channel knobs. Scroll through the chapters using the channel display which shows the chapter number as the current channel. A vidcap of the chapter shows up on the TV screen, and the title appears written on a card in front of the TV set.
Extras
-Commentary: Director, Gil Bellows, producer: It’s fast-paced and surprisingly interesting.
-Music Video:
-Do It - Rev Horton Heat (3:42) Content warning: it's overtly sexual to the point that I would label it perverted. I like the sound and style of the music, but the content is not my thing.
-Deleted Scenes (content warning: sex, drug use, very strong language):
-Car Sex (1:31) Talk about love.
-Speed Lab (2:02) The goons getting in trouble from the evil preacher who shouts blasphemous praises to God.
-Interview (3:04) Talking to the host of Crime Channel on TV.
-Club Soda (2:08) Making a stop at the store.
-Father Pecro (1:59) Raw footage of the evil preacher's TV spectacle.
-Crime Channel (0:45) Raw footage of the Crime Channel report.
-Storyboards (with pretty good art and easy to read scene notes - can be viewed as galleries controlled by buttons or as slideshows with video comparisons):
-Reflexes: The final confrontation.
-Funny Man: The store robbery.
-Trailer (1:40) A somewhat fun trailer.