Review of Thinner (1996) by Alison O — 22 Dec 2004
Best in Show: Robert John Burke.
One for the future: Robert John Burke.
Stand-out scene: American Pie.
Brainer or no-brainer: No brainer.
Stands up to one viewing or repeated?: One.
DVD commentary any good?: n/a.
TV.
Stephen King adaptations are notoriously hit and miss. While Misery, Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile head up the hits, this falls about midway in the league table. King wrote this story as Richard Bachman and in printed form it's a worthy addition to his canon of work. I love his books and have read almost everything he's ever written but the film adaptations usually have me reaching for the novels again, the screenplays usually stripping the material bare of its realism and warm-heartedness, leaving only the bones of the story. This story is about an overweight lawyer (Billy Halleck) who is distracted while driving (a hand job in the book, a blowie in the film recalling The World According to Garp) and kills a gypsy woman in an RTA. When said lawyer is acquitted the gypsy's father places a curse on Halleck and the judge who acquitted him. The lawyer's curse was simply the word "thinner" and he begins losing a steady amount of weight daily. Joe Mantegna plays a mobster who Halleck turns to when he tries to track down the travelling gypsies and get the curse lifted. Watchable but a pale imitation of the novel.
This review of Thinner (1996) was written by Alison O on 22 Dec 2004.
Thinner has generally received mixed reviews.
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