Suicide Blonde (1999) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

Tuna's comments in white:

Suicide Blonde premiered at the 1999 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, and did well enough to land a DVD distribution deal. While clearly a very low budget effort, it was a quick watch. It could best be described as a Tarantinoesque humorous thriller. A lowly valet for a strip joint, who has an "unhealthy fixation" on a stripper who treats him like dirt, and no real life, is parking a classic stretch Cadillac convertible for 4 big time Hispanic crooks, and bumps into a blonde (Angel Boris). She asks him for a ride home, saying that her crazy boyfriend, who has a big gun, is chasing her. They get to her supposed apartment, and the boyfriend shows up wearing a leather jacket with a big scorpion on it and carrying a big gun. The boyfriend's plot was to steal the car and shoot the valet. By chance, he only wounds him, and the valet somehow manages to kill Scorpion.

Meanwhile, the hoods have committed a murder in the strip joint, and are rather upset to be missing their getaway car. After they take a cab from the crime scene, they are looking for the valet, with the idea of horrible torture and death. Boris makes nice with the valet, who ends up killing a second person, and going to bed with her. In the course of the evening, the crooks start talking about the legendary Scorpion guy with the crazy blonde, and are then told that the valet who has their car is actually the legendary Scorpion and the crazy blonde.

As I write this, 10 IMDB readers have this at 8.6 of 10. It isn't really better than Casablanca, but if enough people see it to give it an accurate rating, I would expect it to settle into the low 6s, because the film has some offbeat characters, good looking women, plenty of over-the-top violence, and more than a little humor. It is also a far better looking film than I would expect from a mini-budget production.

NUDITY REPORT

Angel Boris, Hefmate of the month in July, 1996, shows breasts and buns. Tonya Goodson as a stripper shows breasts. Various unidentified background strippers show breasts as well.

Scoop's comments in yellow:

Suicide Blonde is actually a remarkably entertaining film for something made with a budget of approximately zero. It's a gangster comedy-drama in which the gangsters are both threatening and silly, like Miami Cubano updates some of the Runyonesque underworld characters in the films of the 1940's. (Think about the roles Mike Mazurki used to play, if you're a film buff). Shot in the Art Deco District on South Beach, it was filmed with extreme levels of contrast and saturation in order to give a more distinctive flavor to the otherwise unexceptional visuals.  For a no-budget film, it does have a certain flair.

DVD info from Amazon

Barebones. No features, no widescreen.

Summary:

A feckless valet parking attendant is hijacked by psychotic criminals while parking the car of a big-time gangster. During the course of the night, in several desperate self-defense maneuvers, the poor schmuck lucks out of several tricky situations with the hijackers and the car's owner, and ends up assuming the identity of a legendary underworld figure named Scorpion - sort of a Miami version of Keyser Sose. By the time the Cuban Mafia guys finally meet him, it is they who are terrified, not he.

Pretty silly stuff, but an easy watch. Not a big winner, but a film worth watching if you really enjoy the whole lurid, tongue-in-cheek, Tarantino approach to violence.

The Critics Vote

  • no major reviews online

The People Vote ...

  • IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 8.2/10. That's based on 12 votes. It should settle in around 6.0.

 

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this film is a C (Tuna) or C- (Scoopy). Both reviewers were reasonably entertained and surprised to see how good this movie is, within the constraints of its noticeable lack of budget and its inexperienced actors.

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