Choke (2008)
Average Rating: 5.6/10
Reviews Counted: 138
Fresh: 74 | Rotten: 64
While bolstered by strong performances from Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston, Choke struggles to capture the tone of Chuck Palahniuk's novel.
Average Rating: 4.9/10
Critic Reviews: 31
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 22
While bolstered by strong performances from Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston, Choke struggles to capture the tone of Chuck Palahniuk's novel.
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Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 34,422
Movie Info
Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) has got some problems -- when he's not at Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings hunting for women to bed, he masquerades as a choking victim in restaurants as a scheme to gather money from unsuspecting strangers, which he uses to keep his ailing mother (Anjelica Huston) in a high-end extended-care facility for her extreme dementia. But what happens when this messed up Colonial-era theme-park employee finds Mrs. Right in the guise of his mother's doctor -- and how can he
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Cast
-
Sam Rockwell
Victor Mancini -
Anjelica Huston
Ida Mancini -
Kelly Macdonald
Paige Marshall -
Brad William Henke
Denny -
Clark Gregg
Lord High Charlie -
Bijou Phillips
Ursula -
Gillian Jacobs
Beth -
Jonah Bobo
Young Victor -
Paz de la Huerta
Nico -
Viola Harris
Eva Muller -
Joel Grey
Phil -
Isiah Whitlock Jr.
Detective Palmer -
Heather Burns
Gwen -
Matt Malloy
Detective Foushee -
Kathryn Alexander
Agnes
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Choke Trailer & Photos
All Critics (143) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (74) | Rotten (64) | DVD (7)
'Choke' never manages to be as edgy, amusing, insightful or plain messy as you'd hope it would be, especially considering its 'naughty' promotional poster and the distribution of anal beads as a marketing device.
Top CriticI found it choppy, I found it dull, I found it disinteresting.
This movie is only marginally enjoyable.
Choke tries to be dirty but manages merely to be dingy.
Rockwell has an off-center charm and, as his gorgon mother, Anjelica Huston is more imposing than this movie deserves.
Choke is disappointing not for what it is but what it could have been.
We'll allow this sad little premature ejaculation of a movie to choke on its own insufficiencies.
Choke is an admirably fearless no-net movie, but rather than wowing the crowd below, it lands in the center of the big top with a resounding thud.
Squandered dime-store philosophy.
Despite the busy plotwork, surprisingly little actually happens.
an erotic gospel for the secular age
Uneven and oddly compromised in tone, Choke is a competent enough black comedy, but in the shadow of that other film, it never shines.
Choke is a confused sex comedy by Clark Gregg that blunders around for 90-odd minutes trying to look butch and sensitive.
For all its flaws and fumbles there is a certain guilty pleasure in Choke.
This adaptation of a novel by American provocateur Chuck Palahniuk is profane, offensive and obscene, and packed with balefully weak jokes.
Choke was never going to win any prizes for subtlety, but by toning down Palahniuk's nastier absurdities in favour of obvious laughs, Gregg's adaptation is no more provocative than the average Carry On film.
But his sterility and romantically curved plot, twisted as it might be, feel respectively reductive and pat next to Palahniuk's fast, filthy and scabrous satirical stabs.
It's hard to know what aspect is the most offensive: the glib, cynical approach to mental illness; the sleazy sexism; the infantile attempts at blasphemy; or Rockwell's smug, boorish performance.
Palahniuk's novels are so wilfully quirky, so egocentric, so out there, that transferring them to the screen must be like using chopsticks to transport a blancmange across a room.
All this madness provides amusing moments, but the full-throttle absurdities become too difficult to swallow.
The whole movie is dying, actually. But it puts on a brave face and gratefully receives visitors.
An uneven take on Palahniuk's fourth novel, Rockwell and Huston shining brightly enough to eclipse a patchy directorial debut.
Sharper direction and a less throwaway tone would have allowed it to add up to more.
Enjoyable, blackly comic drama with a great script and a terrific central performance by Sam Rockwell.
The many opportunities to send up sex and psychiatry are thrown away when the film gets serious about Victor's bond with his mum. We are Freud alive.
Audience Reviews for Choke
Great performances from the cast with Anjelica Huston (who I love) really shining.
Super Reviewer
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September 22, 2008:
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Featured
Movie: ID: 770682478 Title: Choke Release Date: 2008-09-26 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 4 Status: 1
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The best thing for me was Kelly McDonald. I seem to have caught a few of her movies lately and I've been quite impressed with her. The flashbacks to his childhood with his mum, played by Angelica Huston, were also fun to watch.