October Positivity: The Mark (dir by James Chankin)

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2012 film, The Mark, opens with a covert attack by a group of mercenaries on a laboratory. The head scientist, wanting to make sure that his work is not destroyed, injects guard Chad Turner (Craig Sheffer) with a biometric chip. As Cooper (Eric Roberts), the head of security with Avanti Corporation, explains it, Chad is now the most important person in the world. He has been injected with the future, a chip that will replace the need for personal identification or currency. It’s a chip that Cooper claims will bring the world together under one big government.

Hmmm …. a Pureflix film about a biometric chip that will lead to one world government? Can we all guess where this is leading?

With the world economy collapsing and threats of war dominating the headlines, Cooper decides to personally escort Chad to the G20 economic summit in Berlin. Seeing as how everyone wants to get their hands on the chip, Cooper decides that the best plan is to fly to Berlin on a commercial flight. Cooper describes it as hiding in plain sight. I would describe it as being remarkably stupid.

Needless to say, the flight is an eventful one. Cooper enjoys talking to the other passengers. And Chad flirts with a woman who is convinced that the G20 summit is actually a conspiracy of some sort. The co-pilot asks a flight attendant to marry him and she says, “Yes.” Yay! One of the passengers mentions that he’s a minister and offers to marry them right there but the co-pilot explains that they’re not really into all of that religious stuff. Unfortunately, a mercenary named Mr. Pike (Gary Daniels) hijacks the plane and demands the chip, which is currently being absorbed into Chad’s bloodstream.

The film starts out as a Die Hard clone, with Chad sneaking around the plane and taking out the terrorists one-by-one. Cooper rallies the other passengers to fight back. But then there’s a bright flash of light and half of the passengers and one of the pilots vanishes. The clearly shaken minister says:

That’s right, it’s one of those films!

Can Chad and flight attendant Dao (Sonia Couling) figure out how to open up the locked cockpit so that the remaining agnostic pilot can land the plane? And will Chad be able to escape from the plane, despite the fact that Cooper is still intent on taking him to the summit?

Like a lot of PureFlix films, The Mark attempts to deliver its message in the guise of a genre film. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a bore as an action film, with a slow-moving plot and fight scenes that feel as if they’ve been lifted from countless other films. Craig Sheffer is a bland hero and the terrorists are generic. Not surprisingly, it’s Eric Roberts who steals the film, playing Cooper as being someone who can be a valuable ally but who is also a bit too arrogant for his own good. If I was ever on a hijacked plane, I would definitely want Eric Roberts on my side.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Horror Collection: The Dead Want Women (dir by Charles Band)

Posted on October 20, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2012’s The Dead Want Women opens in 1927.

At her luxurious Hollywood mansion, silent film star Rose Pettigrew (Jean Louise O’Sullivan) is throwing a party to celebrate the release of her new film. While her guests gossip about whether or not the coming of sound is going to end Rose’s career (since Rose’s voice does not fit her sultry image), Rose and three of her friends — cowboy star Sonny (Eric Roberts), scarred leading man Eric Burke (Robert Zachar), and overweight comedian Tubby (Nihilist Gelo) — slip into Rose’s underground dungeon and have an orgy with two flappers. Tubby has just murdered one of the flappers when Rose’s lawyer interrupts the orgy and announces that 1) Rose’s new film is a flop, 2) audiences love the new talkie, 3) the studio will no longer be producing silent films, and 4) Rose no longer has a contract with the studio. The shocked Rose shoots all of her friends and then slits her own throat in front of her horrified guests.

The film then jumps forward to 2012. Two real estate agents, Reese (Jessica Morris) and Danni (Arianna Medix), are getting the long-abandoned mansion ready for a prospecting buyer. They clean the mansion. They find Rose’s old necklace (which fell from her neck when she slit her throat), and they have a bottle of wine. Reese explains who Rose was while Danni says that she hates silent films. That night, the ghosts of Sonny, Eric, Tubby, and one of the flappers suddenly appear, looking to haunt the two real estate agent and ultimately drag them to Hell with all the other tormented spirits of silent Hollywood!

The Dead Want Women attempts to be a campy throwback to the old haunted house films of the 40s and the 50s, just with a lot more gore and nudity. Unfortunately, the film itself is rather slow. The 1927 opening drags on forever and, at one point, I actually groaned when Rose told her weaselly agent to repeat what he had just told her because it literally took five minutes for him to say it beforehand. As a lover of old Hollywood and film history, I appreciated the fact that the film used the coming of sound as the impetus for the haunting and I also liked the fact that the lecherous Tubby was obviously based on Fatty Arbuckle but otherwise, there really wasn’t much to The Dead Want Women. It was a standard Charles Band ghost story, with the emphasis more on boobs than scares.

On the plus side, Eric Roberts was an effectively evil cowboy ghost and some of the rotting flash makeup that was used on the ghosts was properly icky. But otherwise, this is a pretty forgettable film. Sorry, The Dead Want Women. You are not ready for your close-up.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Horror Collection: Clinton Road (dir by Richard Grieco and Steve Stanulis)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2019’s Clinton Road features what might be my favorite Eric Roberts cameo appearance.

Roberts appears standing outside a club in New Jersey. He’s speaking to the woman who is working the door and trying to convince her that he should be allowed into the club, even though she doesn’t think that he’s on the list. He explains that he’s Eric Roberts. The woman replies that he’s not the Eric Roberts that she knows but then, suddenly, she realizes that he is Eric Roberts the movie star! She apologizes profusely. Eric says its okay and gives her a fist bump. Everyone waiting to get into the club applauds.

Seriously, that is the extent of Eric Roberts’s role in Clinton Road. It comes out of nowhere and it has nothing to do with the actual plot of the film. Why is Eric Roberts waiting outside of some club in New Jersey? Who knows? He’s just there and he’s a cool dude and everyone loves him. As with so many of his cameos, one gets the feeling that Roberts just happened to see some people shooting a movie and he decided to be a part of it.

Eric Roberts is not the only well-known actor to make a brief appearance in Clinton Road. The film itself was directed by actor Richard Grieco and it’s obvious that he asked some of his well-known friends to help out. The manager of the club is played Ice-T and he shows up long enough to tell the urban legend of the vanishing hitchhiker. The owner of the club is Vincent Pastore, who played Pussy on The Sopranos. Private investigator-turned-character actor Bo Dietl shows up, playing the mayor of the town and barking orders at people. Everyone gets a chance to be, at least briefly, the center of attention but none of them play characters who actually have anything to do with the film’s main story.

That story is about Michael (played by former American Idol contestant, Ace Young), a fireman whose wife disappeared while walking down Clinton Road, a haunted rural road in New Jersey. (For the record, Clinton Road is real and, as this film states, it’s the center of many urban legends.) Michael is ready to move on and marry his new girlfriend, Kayla (Lauren LaVera). However, Michael’s former sister-in-law, Isabella (Katie Morrison), convinces Michael to go out to Clinton Road with her and make one last effort to contact his wife’s spirit. Accompanying them is a medium named Begory (James DeBello), Begory’s girlfriend, Gianna (Erin O’Brien), and Michael’s brother, Tyler (former Big Brother houseguest Cody Calafiore). Tyler is loudly skeptical of Begory’s claims to be able to speak to the dead but it soon becomes clear that the group is not alone on Clinton Road.

To my surprise, I ended up liking Clinton Road. It’s a very low-budget film and the plot doesn’t always make sense but it was obviously made by people who both loved New Jersey and who loved the legends that have sprung up around Clinton Road. The atmosphere was ominous, the imagery was often surreal, and, when they did appear, the spirits were effectively creepy. The fact that the characters all had an attitude that was more appropriate to The Sopranos than to a standard lost-in-the-woods horror film only served to make the film all the more entertaining. If you’re going to set your horror film in New Jersey, you might as well go all out and make the most New Jersey horror film imaginable.

I enjoyed this film. I just hope Eric Roberts didn’t make the mistake of turning down Clinton Road on his way home.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

October Positivity: Prayer Never Fails (dir by Wes Miller)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2016 film, Prayer Never Fails, tells the story of Aiden Paul (Nick Lashaway). Having survived a traumatic childhood that was full of abuse, Aiden is now the beloved basketball coach at the local high school. (The fact that he never shaves or gets his hair out of his face does not seem to be a problem as far as this school district is concenred.) When one of his players approaches Aiden and tell him that he’s being abused by his father (Lorenzo Lamas), Aiden suggests that the player pray on it. When the player says that he doesn’t know how to pray (because his father is not just abusive but also a hardcore atheist, of course), Aiden takes him into a classroom and teaches him how.

Unfortunately, another teacher sees Aiden and the player praying and reports Aiden to the principal. Aiden is fired from his position. Though Aiden says that he’s just going to give up and find another job, his players demand that Aiden fight to be reinstated. Aiden decides to take the school to court!

Unfortunately, there aren’t any lawyers that Aiden can afford. (And most lawyers would hopefully be ethical enough tell Aiden that, regardless of his good intentions, he doesn’t have a case.) Finally, a chance meeting at a diner leads to Aiden hiring Michael Brown (Clifton Davis), an agnostic lawyer with a gambling problem. Michael takes the case but he soon finds himself going up against master litigator Joseph T. Harrington (Corbin Bernsen). Can Michael somehow win the case?

This is another one of those Christian courtroom films where no one does anything that makes sense. For instance, it seems like, instead of ducking into an open classroom for a quick prayer, Aiden could have reported that one of his students was being abused by a parent, which is something that, as a teacher, he would have been required to do in the first place. (Instead, that subplot is abandoned after Aiden is fired.) As well, to win the case, all Joseph T. Herrington had to do was 1) point out that Aiden had admitted to leading a prayer in school and 2) call to the stand a Constitutional law expert to explain the establishment clause. Instead, Herrington puts the entire concept of prayer on trial and tries to argue that praying doesn’t work. It’s an argument based purely on emotion and bias, which allows Michael to make a counter-argument that’s based purely on emotion and bias. At one point, Michael interrogates the school’s principal as to why he was willing to defend a transgender teacher but not Aiden’s right to pray. The correct answer, of course, is that whether or not another teacher is transgender has nothing to do with Aiden’s case and that the Supreme Court has ruled that prayer is not allowed in public schools. That’s really all anyone needed to say to any of Michael’s arguments but no one does because, if they did, it would be a very short film.

(Along with the dubious legal arguments, this film annoyed me because Aiden didn’t ever bother to shave or comb his hair before the trail began. I mean, seriously, did someone tell him that it was a good strategy to go to court looking like you spend the previous week sleeping in the back of a pickup truck? I would not want him coaching my school’s basketball team.)

On the plus side, Eric Roberts is in this movie. He plays the judge and goes through the film with a bemused smile on his face, as if even he can’t believe the legal arguments that he’s hearing. It’s always nice to see Eric Roberts picking up a paycheck.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Horror Collection: Dark Image (dir by Chris W. Freeman)

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2017’s Dark Image tells the story of two twins.

Jessica and Jayden Browne (April Eden) were two musical prodigies who spent their entire youth either practicing or performing under the guidance of their mother, Phyllis (Leslie Easterbrook). One night, while Phyllis was at the opera with her brother, Alex (John Aprea), someone broke into the house and murdered one of the twins. The surviving twin had a nervous breakdown and soon found herself in a mental hospital, where she was watched over by her uncle Alex.

Assigned to investigate the case was Detective Billy Watts (Thomas Downey), who quickly came to believe that the murderer was the groundskeeper, Ogden Edwards (Ed O’Ross). After one particularly grueling interrogation, Ogden left the police station, got drunk, and then drove to Watts’s home to confront him. Unfortunately, the drunk Ogden not only crashed his car on Billy’s lawn but he also ran over Billy’s son, who only wanted to stay up late so he could watch fireworks. When Ogden was acquitted of murder, Billy swore vengeance and was quickly suspended from the force by Captain Fanning (Eric Roberts).

Now, the surviving twin has finally stopped hearing voices and is planning on spending the weekend at the house where the murders took place. She’s hoping that staying at the house will lead her to remember something. Alex sends his daughter, Lindsey (Eve Mauro), along to keep an eye on the twin but that turns out to be a bit of a mistake as Lindsey is kind of a drunk. Alex also asks Billy to keep an eye on the house but, again, that plan falls apart when Billy sees Ogden Edwards stumbling around the property.

From the minute she and Lindsey arrive at the house, the surviving twin starts to hear voices and see shadows moving in the dark. When she and Lindsey go out to a bar, everyone in the place briefly appears to be a faceless demon. Could it perhaps be connected to a mysterious note that the twin found in the house, the one that featured a reference to Dante’s Inferno and suggested that the house itself might be a gateway to Hell? Well, that’s always a possibility!

There are plenty of things about Dark Image that don’t make much sense. For instance, the twin is continually freaking out and screaming about her visions but nobody around her ever seems to view that as being particularly strange. The twin’s plan for going back to the house doesn’t make much sense (though, to the film’s credit, it does offer up an explanation as to just why exactly the twin actually did decide to return) and it also doesn’t make sense that Lindsey would agree to accompany her. As soon as Lindsey arrives at the house, she’s drinking wine and joking about picking up men at the bar and you have to wonder why she’s apparently not creeped out about the idea of spending the weekend at the house where one her cousins was brutally murdered by a killer who was never captured. The fact that Lindsey’s an alcoholic can only excuse so much.

That said, though, Dark Image is entertaining as long as you don’t spend too much time worrying about the film’s logic. If you just watch it for the atmosphere and for April Eden’s intense performance, Dark Image is a perfectly serviceable horror thriller that has a decent number of twists and one effectively creepy scene where Eden is menaced by a shadowy figure while taking a shower. Ed O’Ross does a good job playing Ogden Edwards and the ending of the film is properly macabre. It’s an effective film when taken on its own terms.

As for Eric Roberts, he only appears in two scenes but it’s always fun to see him. He plays the somewhat sarcastic police captain who is constantly telling his detectives to do it by the book. Eric Roberts is always entertaining when he’s playing a character in a bad mood.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

October Positivity: Exodus of the Prodigal Son (dir by Andy Rodriguez)

Posted on October 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As you can tell from looking at the poster for this 2020 film, Eric Roberts is in Exodus of the Prodigal Son. Even though he’s given top-billing on the poster and is pictured as being at the center of all of the characters, Eric Roberts doesn’t really do much in this movie. This is one of those films where Eric Roberts probably shot all of his scenes in a day. Whenever we see him, he is relaxing behind his desk. I don’t think he even bother to change his clothes between scenes, despite the fact that the film plays out over a few days.

Eric Roberts is playing Chief Roberts, which really does contribute to the feeling that he just showed up on set and decided to be a part of the movie. Chief Roberts is always encouraging his detectives to go out and catch the bad guys. Apparently, there’s been a string of child murders and Roberts sure would like to capture whoever was responsible for them. But it also appears that the Chief mostly just wants an arrest. He really doesn’t seem to care if the people who are arrested are guilty or not. It’s a bit hard to know what to make of Chief Roberts. Then again, it’s difficult to know what to make of anyone in this movie.

The plot is damn near incoherent but, as far as I can tell, Jordan (Ronnie Alvarez) and Eddie (Pablo Nunez) are brothers who were raised in the church and taught to follow the straight and narrow path. But then Eddie stops going to church and starts hanging out with wannabe gangsters like Mark (Adam Mendoza). Mark is big into Santeria and his idea of flirting is to talk about how he gets good luck from sacrificing goats on an altar that’s built for La Santa Muerta. When Eddie’s friend, Steve (Samuel Warburton), stops by Jordan and Eddie’s place to talk to Eddie about returning to church, Mark gives Steve a drink that has been laced with some sort of drug. Steve overdoses. Eddie goes to the hospital with Steve. Meanwhile, Mark decides to pull a knife on Jordan which leads to a struggle in which Mark somehow stabs himself in the neck and dies. Now, with the help of his biker uncle, Jordan has to go on the run.

Who is the prodigal son in this scenario? I’m not really sure. The whole point of the parable of the prodigal son is that the prodigal chose to leave home on his own. He wasn’t fleeing the police or anything like that. So, Eddie would seem to be the prodigal son but he’s not the one who goes into hiding or learns a spiritual lesson. Instead, that’s what happens to Jordan but, again, Jordan didn’t leave home because he wanted to. He left home because the cops were after him. It’s probably best not to worry too much about it. The plot here was obviously not meant to be followed.

There’s a lot to criticize about this film but really, the thing that took this film from bad to terrible was the sound. Some of the dialogue is muffled. Some of it is unreasonably loud. In one of his first scenes, Eric Roberts keeps bumping his wristwatch against the sound of his desk and the effect is deafening. Later, in the hospital, the beeping of Steve’s EKG monitor is so loud that it’s impossible to understand what anyone is saying. People, I think, tend to underestimate the importance of clear sound in a movie. It’s something we take for granted but when it’s not there, it’s enough to make you want to throw something at the screen.

Finally — and this is a spoiler — the film commits the sin of ending on a “It was all a dream!” note. So, does that mean that Eric Roberts was a part of the dream or did he really exist? It’s a question that’s far more intriguing than anything else about this particular film.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Horror Collection: Deadly Nightshade (dir by Benjamin Rider)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2021’s Deadly Nightshade is not an easy film to describe.

An analog voice asks us to return to a time in the recent past, when people watched movies on VHS tapes and the television was the world’s main source of escape. In Brixton, Victoria (Suzie Houlihan) goes to her flat, excited to spend the weekend in Brighton with her boyfriend, Marcus (Matthew Laird). She finds a mysterious man named Adam (Christopher Blackburn) in the flat. Adam says that he’s a friend of Marcus’s and he’s going to be staying in the flat for the weekend. Adam wants Victoria to listen to a tape recording of what he claims is an exorcism. Victoria is not comfortable with him.

Marcus finally shows up, covered in blood that is not his. Marcus says that he witnessed an accident on the way home and he stopped to rescue one of the women involved. Suddenly, that woman shows up. Her name is Mia (Lottie Johnson) and it appears that she’s planning on staying in the apartment as well.

The analog voice invites us to watch a documentary about the real events that inspired Deadly Nightshade but an appearance by Eric Roberts as occult expert Father Walsh clues us in that the documentary is just as fictional as the film that we’re watching.

Strange things continue to happen at the flat. Victoria’s mother mysteriously appears at one point. Adam has visions of a woman lying in bed and telling him that he’s too obsessed with television. Victoria falls asleep and when she wakes up, Mia is claiming that Marcus is her boyfriend and that Adam is Victoria’s boyfriend and no one really seems to know why Victoria is even at the flat. For all the talk of spending the weekend in Brighton, no one seems like they’re in a particular hurry to leave the flat….

It’s an odd film and I would suggest not trying too hard to follow the plot. It’s a film that plays out like a filmed nightmare, working on its own bizarre strain of logic. Just as in a dream, personalities change randomly and the lay-out of the flat seems to alter from scene to scene. Plot points, like Adam’s exorcism tape, are brought up and then abandoned just to mysteriously be brought up again. It’s not a movie that makes much sense but, if you relax and just go with it, it definitely leaves an impression.

As for Eric Roberts, he’s not in much of the film. It’s pretty obvious that he filmed his scenes in an hour or two, probably at his own home. It wouldn’t surprise me if he provided his own clerical collar. That said, if you’re going to have a mysterious man talking about the supernatural in your low-budget film, I would say that Eric Roberts is who you would want to go with.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Collection: Enemies Among Us (dir by Dan Garcia)

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Normally, I’d never celebrate the idea of the hero of a movie being wrongly sent to prison in a state that is rather aggressive in its use of the death penalty but Devin Taylor (Griffin Hood), the hero of 2010’s Enemies Among Us, was so annoying that I found myself hoping he would never get out of jail.

Enemies Among Us is a low-budget film about many different things. Sen. Fred Edmonds (Steven Bauer) of North Carolina is about to accept his party’s presidential nomination and most of the polls show him far in the lead. Senator Edmonds is planning on naming Louisiana Governor Chip Majors (James DuMont) as his running mate because this film takes place in a world where presidential nominees don’t try to balance their ticket by picking someone from a different region or from a swing state. When we see Sen. Edmonds, he’s being interrogated by a journalist named Gretna (Tammi Arender), who is upset over campaign finance laws. We’re meant to dislike Edmonds but Gretna is written and performed as being such a caricature of a shrill left-winger that we actually start to feel bad for Sen. Edmonds. LEAVE HIM ALONE, GRETNA!

Meanwhile, Gov. Majors has just murdered the prostitute that he was visiting in the same hotel where, in a few hours, he’s supposed to host a major fundraiser. The prostitute tried to kill the governor first but still, murder is murder. However, the governor offers to pay off two members of his security details, Devin and Cobbs (Eric Roberts). Cobbs is enthusiastic about the idea and seems to find them whole thing to be rather amusing. Devin is conflicted but he goes with the plan …. for a while.

Meanwhile, Cobb’s ex-wife Goloria (Robin Givens) is a CIA interrogator who is torturing a terrorist named Jassim (Armando Leduc) in an effort to lean when the next big terrorist attack is planned. Jassim taunts her, saying that Americans don’t understand why the rest of the world hates them. The torture leads Jassim to have a bizarre hallucination, in which he makes out with Gloria and rambles on about the sorry state of humanity.

Meanwhile, Agent Graham (Billy Zane) hangs out in bars and …. well, he really doesn’t do much beyond act like Billy Zane.

Wow, what an annoying movie. Enemies Among Us is one of those films that wants to tackle all of the important subjects but it approaches politics with all of the nuance and imagination of a college freshman who has just read Howard Zinn for the first time and is now convinced that he has all the answers. There’s not a subtle moment to be found in Enemies Among Us and the scene where Devin starts yelling about how Americans deserve honesty is so clumsily handled that you’ll find yourself laughing more than nodding along.

That said …. Eric Roberts is in this! Roberts doesn’t get a lot of screentime and his character is given an unceremonious exit from the film but he’s still the film’s highlight. Roberts spends the entire film smiling. Even the discovery that the governor has murdered the prostitute cannot wipe that smile off of Roberts’s face. It’s a bizarre performance but at least it’s entertaining. It’s the type of performance that will remind viewers of why they love Eric Roberts, even in films like this.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

September Positivity: A Town Called Parable (dir by Scott Hester)

Posted on September 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2021’s A Town Called Parable, Eric Roberts plays Reverend John Corell. He’s a pastor who lives in a small frontier town called Parable. It’s a town that’s full of gunslingers, gamblers, and businessmen. It’s the Old West, as long as you’re willing to overlook the fact that most of the characters have modern haircuts and wear clothes that look like they were purchased from the neighborhood costume shop.

John Corell is having a crisis of faith, due to the fact that some gunslingers gunned down his brother in the middle of the night. Corell is not sure how he can possibly be expected to forgive the men that killed his brother. He wants revenge but he knows that seeking revenge will mean rejecting everything that he believes in.

Now, to be honest, the idea of Eric Roberts playing a morally conflicted, old west preacher-turned-gunfighter actually does have some potential and I was totally looking forward to the sight of Roberts walking down a dusty street and demanding that his enemies “Draw!” Unfortunately, the majority of that potential is unrealized. The film only runs for a little over 70 minutes and most of Eric Roberts’s scenes feature him performing a monologue in his church. As Corell speaks, he remembers things that have happened to other citizens of Parable. Needless to say, there’s a lesson to be found in every flashback. The town isn’t called Parable for nothing.

For instance, Corell remembers the starving man who kept knocking at everyone’s door until he finally found someone willing to give him some food. He remembers the widow who kept demanding that the sheriff do something about the men who killed her husband and how she refused to stop demanding until justice was served. He also remembers the drunken employee who was forgiven once by his employer but who didn’t change his ways and who was savagely beaten as a result. (His wife and child were also sold to the highest bidder …. YIKES!) The stories all roughly correspond to a Biblical parable but, at the same time, they don’t offer up much of a solution as to what Corell should do when the men who killed his brother gather outside of his church.

It’s a disappointing film and one that does not take advantage of the presence of Eric Roberts. I mean, if you can actually convince Eric Roberts to spend more than day on your set, you need to do something more with him than just have him pace around one location. Fortunately, there are other Eric Roberts westerns out there that make better use of his unique talents.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

June Positivity: Worth: The Testimony of Johnny St. James (dir by Jenn Page)

Posted on June 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 2012, Worth is a film about a hostage situation.

Ugh.

Listen, I’m just going to be honest with you here. With a few obvious exceptions (i.e., Dog Day Afternoon), I am not a huge fan of films about hostage situations. It doesn’t matter how talented the cast may be or how much the director tries to keep things interesting. Usually, as soon as the hostage taker pulls that gun and yells, “Nobody move!,” whatever narrative momentum that the film may have had going comes to a screeching halt and thing proceed to get very stagey. The audience is expected to sit through at least 90 minutes of wailing hostages, feverish monologues, and Stockholm syndrome. And, of course, we can’t forget the SWAT team threatening to kill both the hostage taker and the hostages while a harried negotiator tries to bring everything to a peaceful solution. It’s all very predictable and usually a bit tedious to sit through.

Worth is also a film about alcoholics so double ugh. I’m not a huge fan of alcoholics or films where people spend all of their time giving speeches about why they started drinking and what happened to make them hit rock bottom. Don’t get me wrong. There’s been a lot of great films made about alcoholism but there’s also been a lot of films that seem to exist to remind us of just how whiny alcoholics can be. Mixing alcoholics and hostages is rarely a good thing.

On the plus side, Worth has got Eric Roberts in it. No, Roberts does not play the hostage taker. Nor does he play one of the hostages. Roberts ends up with the unenviable task of having to negotiate with the hostage taker. Eric Roberts’s role is not a big one. One gets the feeling that it probably took two days (maybe three) for him to shoot all of his scenes. Still, his role here is bigger (and more important) than his role in Amityville Death House.

Worth’s main character is Johnny St. James (Jeffrey Johnson), a former seminarian who ended up becoming a cop. Ten years ago, Johnny’s pregnant wife was killed by a drunk driver and Johnny himself has been an alcoholic ever since. Johnny is finally ready to attend his first AA meeting and his friend and partner, Hickey (Eric Roberts), tags along for moral support. While Johnny is inside the church for the meeting, Hickey is the one who waits in the car and calls into headquarters and tells the chief that Johnny’s at an emergency dental appointment.

Unfortunately, Johnny discovers that the AA meeting is being led by Earl (Vincent Irizarry), the man who was driving the car that struck and killed Johnny’s wife. Earl did several years in prison and became a minister during his time behind bars. Earl may not recognize Johnny but Johnny automatically knows who Earl is. Johnny sits in the back of the church, listening as the other members of the group give their testimony. After listening to Chad (Corey Feldman) talk about how difficult it is to be sober, Johnny snaps, pull out his gun, and — ugh — the hostage situation begins.

The movie starts out well, with both Eric Roberts and Vincent Irizarry offering up strong supporting performances. I mean, even Corey Feldman isn’t that bad. But as soon as Johnny pulls that gun and starts shouting and bullying everyone and barking out orders, the film turns into a bit of an endurance test. There’s only so much time that someone can spend listening to one guy yell at people about not moving before mentally checking out. Johnny traps himself in that church as soon as he pulls that gun but the film also traps itself by not leaving itself anywhere else to go. Johnny has a tragic backstory and the film does share an important message about the power of forgiveness but Johnny himself was such an annoying character than even I wanted the SWAT team to storm the church and take that douchebag out.

Worth was no Dog Day Afternoon.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed: