The Netflix streaming thread tends to get buried for long periods of time and it's also almost impossible to search for an actual movie...so...I decided to post this here for those who may be interested.

So, I'd never heard of this and based on the strong cast, and a premise that sounded promising, I gave it a spin.  I wanted to like it...I really did, but all things considered, I'd say this really sucks the old long one and is pretty much an embarrassment for all involved.

It appears this was only theatrically released in Germany in 1999, which is odd, being an American movie taking place in NYC, with all American actors.  Released on video in America in late 2000.

Strong cast of Julliette Lewis, William Hurt, a barely recognizable Shelley Duvall, Tobin Bell, and a number of other recognizable faces, written and directed by Josh Klausner, who also wrote Date Night and Shrek Forever After.

This borefest starts off "wrong" like so many scripts do and not only never recovers, but gets more and more ridiculous as it sputters along.  First off, we have Julliette Lewis at 26 and William Hurt at 49 as a romantically engaged couple - uhhh, no, that doesn't work, won't ever work, and certainly doesn't here.

The script is basically a whodunit snoozer in which Klausner most likely handed out Snidley Whiplash mustaches before filming to the entire cast and said, just act as dastardly villainous as you can, so the audience won't know who to trust, and you'll all be potential Antagonists.  I mean, seriously...c'mon now...it's so crazily overdone, that even a taxi cab driver who's onscreen for about 8 seconds is acting like he could be involved somehow.

The final reveal is comedic in its absurdity, but the real problem here is that it's just so slow and dull...and poorly acted (but that's most likely do to a very poorly conceived script, full of poorly conceived scenes and transitions to other scenes) by usually very reliable actors...and the sheer unrealisticness of everything involved here.

Somehow, I've read positive feedback to this thing and that only hammers home the reality that the world is populated with a surprisingly large number of complete idiots.

Am I recommending this?  Hell no, but if you want to see how not to stage a plot like this, how not to set up scenes and dialogue and string along successive inane scenes of completely meaningless BS, and how not to set up a finale, you could do a Hell of alot worse.

The tacked on final reveal is also a real head scratcher, and just jaw droppingly ridiculous.  You could play around with what it's really saying for days, but my recommendation is to simply laugh and say, "Fuck you, Josh Klausner...you're an idiot.".