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Big Bad Love (2001)

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Top Critics

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: 5.3/10
Critic Reviews: 20
Fresh: 7 | 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: 1,138

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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

R, 1 hr. 51 min.

Art House & International, Drama

Directed By: Arliss Howard

Written By: Arliss Howard, Jim Howard

In Theaters: Oct 11, 2001 Wide

On DVD: Sep 24, 2002

IFC Films

Though you couldn't call Love a complete success, it's packed with talent and intelligence, wayward poetry and bluesy longing.

July 20, 2002 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune

| Comment

Michael Wilmington

Chicago Tribune

Top Critic

A movie that can't get sufficient distance from Leroy's delusions to escape their maudlin influence.

June 21, 2002 Full Review Source: Toronto Star

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Geoff Pevere

Toronto Star

Top Critic

The movie is obviously a labour of love so Howard appears to have had free rein to be as pretentious as he wanted.

June 21, 2002 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail

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Liam Lacey

Globe and Mail

Top Critic

A rough, uneven but admirably imaginative film.

May 3, 2002 Full Review Source: Dallas Morning News

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Chris Vognar

Dallas Morning News

Top Critic

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.

April 26, 2002 Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press

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Terry Lawson

Detroit Free Press

Top Critic

Admirably ambitious but self-indulgent.

March 29, 2002 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle

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Carla Meyer

San Francisco Chronicle

Top Critic

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.

April 12, 2006 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com

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Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com Source: EmanuelLevy.Com

Makes you wish you'd stayed at home with a book -- preferably one of Larry Brown's.

October 16, 2003 Full Review Source: About.com

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Jurgen Fauth

About.com

The very definition of what critics have come to term an "ambitious failure."

March 22, 2003 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide

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David Nusair

Apollo Guide

Ultimately a failed actor's piece...

February 7, 2003 Full Review Source: ToxicUniverse.com

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Keith Uhlich

ToxicUniverse.com

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.

November 25, 2002 Full Review Source: Needcoffee.com

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Widgett Walls

Needcoffee.com

A flawed effort at best, but intriguing nonetheless.

October 21, 2002 Full Review Source: San Diego Metropolitan

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Jean Lowerison

San Diego Metropolitan

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

September 26, 2002 Full Review Source: Matinee Magazine

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Jason Clark

Matinee Magazine

The movie's best asset is Howard's filmmaking.

September 26, 2002 Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor

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David Sterritt

Christian Science Monitor

A mess, but it's a sincere mess.

August 8, 2002 Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly

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Manohla Dargis

L.A. Weekly

It's a drawling, slobbering, lovable run-on sentence of a film, a Southern Gothic with the emotional arc of its raw blues soundtrack.

August 8, 2002 Comment

Duane Dudek

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Its pleasures are ... sharp and not to everyone's taste

July 26, 2002 Full Review | Comment (1)

Philip Martin

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

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.

July 11, 2002 Full Review Source: eye WEEKLY

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Adam Nayman

eye WEEKLY

More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Big Bad Love

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In "Big Bad Love," Leon Barlow(Arliss Howard, who also directed and co-wrote) is an aspiring writer who tapes his rejection letters to his bathroom wall. His wealthy friend, Monroe(Paul Le Mat), gets him the occasional job housepainting, where they hang out together, followed by much drinking of beer. Due to his

September 27, 2007

Walter M.

Super Reviewer

A beer-soaked poem of a movie. It's pretty slow-moving, but Arliss Howard's performance and his use of surreality help to capture the chaotic, frustrating, poetic life of Leon Barlow. Everybody in this one provides strong performances, particularly Paul Le Mat as Barlow's amiable best friend and Angie Dickinson as

March 26, 2008

J Dean

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