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Bookmark this pageAmerican Perfekt (1997)
Director: Paul Chart
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Stealing a trick from Luke Rhinehart's cult novel The Dice Man, this has Forster bestowing his fate on the flip of a silver dollar. He's a doctor zigzagging across the Midwest - heads left, tails right. Bumping into Plummer's neurotic Sandra in the middle of the desert, and, taking her under his supposedly protective wing, the good doc probably isn't the answer she's looking for. Things get more intense when they run up against Thewlis's roadhog, Ernest Santini, an English magician and smalltime con operator. Then it falls apart... There's probably a great movie to be made according to the rules of chance, but this ain't it. After an intriguing first act, writer/director Chart gets confused by his own sleight of hand and winds up in banal serial-killer thriller territory. but at least he has an eye for casting. Forster's weary grace is every bit as appealing here as in Jackie Brown, and his subtle style is an effective counterpoint to Thewlis's manic energy and the neurotic tics of Plummer and Balk (eminently credible as Sandra's sister, Alice).Author: TCh
Cast & crew
Director: Paul Chart
Producer: Irving Kershner
Cast: Fairuza Balk, Robert Forster, Amanda Plummer, Paul Sorvino, Robert Thewlis, Geoffrey Lewis, Chris Sarandon, Joanna Gleason, Jay Patterson full cast
Duration: 100 mins
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