Goodbye Lover

Once again I have to say I don't see where all the negativity is coming from. This is a very funny movie. I am not a DeGenerus fan, but I thought she was hilarious here. Patricia Arquette is one of my favorites and I thought she was great! Sexy and smart and innocent in a way notwithstanding all her scheming. The three main male roles are played well. I have a job where we watch a lot movies and I have shared this with 10 or 12 others, and each of them has loved this film. Give it a chance if you like laidback, funny neonoir.

GOODBYE LOVER slipped by a lot of viewers when it was released in 1998 and it is only now while on DVD that the quality of this little tongue-in-cheek film noir is gaining steady popularity. And that is basically due to a superb cast of fine actors who obviously are enjoying every minute of the project. Sandra (Patricia Arquette) is a girl of somewhat lethal ambition, married to Jake (Dermot Mulroney) but having an affair with Jake's brother Ben (Don Johnson) who is also having an affair with his secretary Peggy (Mary-Louise Parker). The action quickens when the dark murder-for-insurance angle appears, but this also opens the door for the entrance of detective Pompano (Ellen DeGeneres) and her oingo-boingo partner Rollins (Ray McKinnon) who set about solving the tangled mysteries. The results create a very funny, dark humored movie that sparkles in the hands of all of the actors, especially with DeGeneres and Arquette. A great movie? No, but one that is a lot of fun as directed with an astute grasp of the medium by Roland Joffé

This had the chance to be a very good movie. It's quirky and dark, but the script needed to be cleaned up. There are too many coincidences and loose ends, and some important plot points are not adequately explained. In a consitently good cast, DeGeneres is a stand-out. The role is perfect for her, and she handles it very well. The doofus partner thing is a little much, but it's fun watching her dump on him -- my guess is that they expanded his role a little to give her a chance to be mean even more often. I can't really recommend this movie, but if you like noir and DeGeneres, you might want to take a chance.

"Goodbye Lover" is certainly unpredictable, but there is a catch: once you've figured out the movie's cynical attitude (every single character is a slimy cheat looking for the big bucks), the twists all fall into the same pattern and lose their impact. Ellen DeGeneres is particularly grating; Don Johnson, Mary Louise Parker and even Ray McKinnon come off better, because they are pleasingly understated. (**1/2)

I read all those negative comments. I rented this movie yesterday because first I couldn't decide which film I want to see. But finally I was pleasently surprised by this good comedy and by the acting of Don Johnson and mainly Ellen DeGeneres. Her detective Rita Pompano is very funny and I love her cynicism. This is the main reason why I vote 7 to this movie.

"Goodbye Lover" is the remedy for a person in need of sizzling, film noir mystery or laugh-out-loud comedy. Patricia Arquette and Ellen DeGeneres carry the film and both seem right at place as their characters. Arquette plays Sandra Dunmore, Don Johnson is Ben, her husband's brother. Dermot Mulroney is Jake Dunmore, Sandra's husband. A plan is being woven and you don't always know by who, as insurance money is what everyone wants. I won't give anything away, even though twists aren't the only thing this film has going for it. Like I said, I spent half the time laughing hysterically. Ellen DeGeneres is Rita Pompano, a lazy detective who hates the human race and is only in the force because "Every once in a while I get to shoot somebody." The film's script is smooth and well written, full of the right dose of thrills and laughs. Despite what many may say about this film, it is the perfect example of what film noir is all about. Not just mystery, not just comedy, but a little bit of both. A fantastic film.

So here's the story outline. Ben is having an affair with his alcoholic brother Jake's wife Sandra.Ben gets involved with a co-worker called Peggy and Sandra gets jealous letting Jake know about the affair. Both Jake and Sandra then kill Ben.The story should have just ended there, but then there is an insurance claim, Jake and Sandra think they will get it, but then they find out that Ben got married to Peggy. In comes in Rita Pompano, a sergeant, who then tries to solve not just Ben's murder but Peggy's too... Patricia Arquette plays Sandra, who really lives to up the blonde bimbo routine, Dermot Mulroney looks and acts strange in the whole movie and Don Johnson dies. Ellen DeGeneres had some good lines, the sarcasm didn't quite fall into place in every scene that she had, but she was okay. The movie was just so dull it did no justice towards the talent that was used for it!

"Goodbye Lover" is not a feel good film, that's for sure!!. In fact it's quite a horrible little film in which every character is a self-absorbed greedy nasty cheat. There isn't anyone in this movie that you will warm to in any way, and that's the whole plots downfall. You have to route for someone, yet here, you wont be able to. The plot centres around a nymphomaniac who is cheating on her alcoholic husbands brother, that is until he finds out and a whole array of incidents and twists unfold. Its watchable and certainly not a dreadful film, but its not one you will ever want to watch again, which is a shame because there are some respectable actors here - but what on earth they ever saw in such a horrible film, God only knows!!

The death of "Goodbye Lover" obviously came in its editing. Because watching it, you do see that hidden within the numerous layers of ridiculous bile, there was at some point, an actually coherent plot. Not to fault editor Bill Steinkamp too terribly, because while the story may be choppy and often unexplained and lacking a central arc due to the cuts made, one gets the overwhelming impression that, with or without editing, this film *stinks*. It doesn't know whether it wants to be funny, tense, smarmy, sexy, or devious. It is literally as if the writers drew slips of paper titled "things we like about movies" from a hat and put it into the script. Director Roland Joffé (who did The Killing Fields - what happened?!) does his best, I guess, but that is not enough. The cast tries hard enough that it's only fair to warrant that it isn't their fault. But, there's nothing that could have saved this movie short of never making it.

If you've got nothing better to do one night and manage to catch this little gem on late night TV, then it's worth an hour and a half of your time. A stylishly shot quirky film noir with a plot that twists and turns like a twisty-turny thing. With a sizzling performance by the weird femme fatale Patricia Arquette, and great dialogue from Ellen de Generes as the laconic cop, it's a very entertaining thriller. Be warned if you are a cynic, Citizen Kane it ain't, but if you're a fan of the genre and into the Likes of Last Seduction, Bound, Palmetto etc., this underrated piece of work may just tickle your fancy.