ROB ROY
A film review by Christopher Null
Copyright 1995 Christopher Null
The classic Rob Roy cocktail: pour 1-1/2 oz. scotch whiskey and 1/2 oz. sweet vermouth into a mixing glass with ice, stir, and strain. Add one maraschino cherry. Make more than one; you'd better drink up before you head off to see this dog of a picture.
ROB ROY is not, unfortunately, a film about bartending. Rather, it's the first of three upcoming swashbuckler movies for 1995. Liam Neeson is Robert Roy McGregor, the famed Scottish highlander with a heart of gold. Jessica Lange is his headstrong wife. After half an hour of proving what a Great Guy he is, Rob plans to make a bundle of profits on driving some cattle across Scotland. He borrows some money from a nobleman to fund this campaign, only to have it is stolen by Bad Guy Cunningham (Tim Roth).
Well, the nobleman isn't so happy that his cash is gone, so he sends none other than Cunningham (who's running scams on everyone) to hunt poor Rob Roy down. This goes on for quite some time. Two and a half hours, to be exact, until the Big Swordfight Scene...which turns out to be not-so-big, and rushes us into the obligatory Happy Ending.
ROB ROY can basically be summed up in one word: boring. When it isn't boring, it's incomprehensible. And when it isn't incomprehensible, it's disgusting, featuring very off-color humor, bodily excretions, the disembowelment of rotting cattle, and the like. Believe me, I did *not* need to see Jessica Lange squatting. (Yes, I'm serious.)
Only some lush scenery saves this film from utter disgrace. Trivial, predictable, and, in the end, irrelevant, I almost couldn't bear to sit through it. Director Michael Caton-Jones and everyone else involved in this disaster should be shot for wasting the public's time. The rating is generous.
RATING: *1/2
|* Unquestionably awful | |** Sub-par on many levels | |*** Average quality, hits and misses | |**** Good, memorable film | |***** Perfection |
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