Big Bad Love (2001)
Average Rating: 5.4/10
Reviews Counted: 58
Fresh: 24 | Rotten: 34
A boozy depiction of a struggling writer, Big Bad Love is too messy and self-indulgent.
Average Rating: 5.5/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 13
A boozy depiction of a struggling writer, Big Bad Love is too messy and self-indulgent.
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Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 1,171
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Movie Info
Actor Arliss Howard made his debut as a director with this emotional drama adapted from a handful of short stories by Larry Brown. Barlow (Arliss Howard) is a deeply troubled Vietnam veteran who has been chasing a career as a writer, with little success; when he isn't struggling with his typewriter, he's usually drinking, and his wild mood swings and alcoholic fits of rage have driven away his wife Marilyn (Debra Winger), who has taken their son Alan (Zach Moody) and daughter Alisha (Olivia
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Cast
-
Arliss Howard
Barlow -
Debra Winger
Marilyn -
Paul Le Mat
Monroe -
Rosanna Arquette
Velma -
Angie Dickinson
Mrs. Barlow -
Michael Parks
Mr. Aaron -
Alex Van
Deputy -
R.L. Burnside
Himself -
Jo Ann Robinson
One Night Stand -
Sigourney Weaver
Betti Deloreo -
Gloria Winters
Mrs. Shepard -
Larry Brown
Mr. Barlow -
Michael Williamson
Young Barlow -
Coleman Barks
Minister -
Edwin P. Hicks
Judge -
Zach Moody
Alan -
Olivia Kersey
Alisha -
Kevin Mitchell
Twin #1 -
Sue Peavey
Cindy -
Kenneth Carter
Nurse -
Melody Wilson
Young Mrs. Barlow -
Preston Duke
Farmer -
Jacob McAnally
Farmer's Son -
Ian McAnally
Farmer's Son -
Bob Muse
Lost Freezer Guy -
Cool Man
Himself -
Kenny Brown
Boxcar Marine/R. L.'s B... -
Christie Jackson
Betti Deloreo -
Reginald Wilson
Boy Athlete -
Johnny McPhail
Mop Guy -
Jaymee Vowel
Rebuffing Woman -
L. Jay Mckinney
Geranium Drunk -
Cedric Burnside
R. L.'s Band -
Matt Mitchell
Twin #2
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All Critics (66) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (24) | Rotten (34) | DVD (1)
Though you couldn't call Love a complete success, it's packed with talent and intelligence, wayward poetry and bluesy longing.
Top CriticA movie that can't get sufficient distance from Leroy's delusions to escape their maudlin influence.
The movie is obviously a labour of love so Howard appears to have had free rein to be as pretentious as he wanted.
A rough, uneven but admirably imaginative film.
While Howard's appreciation of Brown and his writing is clearly well-meaning and sincere, the movie would be impossible to sit through were it not for the supporting cast.
The film often achieves a mesmerizing poetry.
This ambitious drama about a Vietnam vet trying to create fiction out of his troubled life and former marriage (to Debra Winger) is messy, rambling, and overlong.
Makes you wish you'd stayed at home with a book -- preferably one of Larry Brown's.
The very definition of what critics have come to term an "ambitious failure."
Ultimately a failed actor's piece...
Offhand, if you'd like to see some great imagery about writing, then you should by all means rent this and skip to the good parts.
A flawed effort at best, but intriguing nonetheless.
The worst kind of independent; the one where actors play dress down hicks and ponderously mope around trying to strike lightning as captured by their 1970s predecessors
The movie's best asset is Howard's filmmaking.
A mess, but it's a sincere mess.
It's a drawling, slobbering, lovable run-on sentence of a film, a Southern Gothic with the emotional arc of its raw blues soundtrack.
Its pleasures are ... sharp and not to everyone's taste
It retains enough moments of twangy gallows humour, mostly courtesy of Paul Le Mat as Leon's corpulent drinking buddy, to keep the film from becoming a bludgeoning experience.
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[font=Century Gothic][/font]
[font=Century Gothic]"Big Bad Love" is a rambling stream of consciousness movie that stays one step ahead of total incomprehension. It is a tricky approach to take with a movie because the reality and the fantasy can be hard to tell apart at times but here it works due to Howard's keen visual eye which does a very good job of showing Leon's mental state.(And it is especially clear that Leon has not had sex in a good long while.) But a little of that goes a long way, and after a while, it does get tedious before a huge event shakes up the movie, shoving it into an entirely new direction. In the end, the movie might have worked had it been about 20-30 minutes shorter.[/font]