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List Price: $9.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 66383
Released: February 3, 2004 |
| Our Price: $2.10 |
| Used Price: $0.30 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 3-FEB-2004
Media Type: DVD
Description of It's the Rage:
No, it's the cast. A homeowner (Jeff Daniels) shoots an intruder, who turns out to be his business partner. A police officer (Robert Forster) suspects a setup. His wife (Joan Allen), who didn't know they even had a gun in the house, she gets a job with a reclusive computer billionaire (Gary Sinise). The billionaire's former assistant (Josh Brolin) has left the company to work in the movies, and he falls for a street waif (Anna Paquin). Daniels's lawyer (André Braugher), who is gay, also falls for the waif, much to the chagrin of his unstable partner (David Schwimmer) as well as the waif's unstable brother (Giovanni Ribisi). Based on a play by Chicago playwright Keith Reddin (who also wrote the screenplay) and directed by theater director turned first-time movie director James D. Stern, It's the Rage never transcends its theatrical roots. Instead of a character type, each person in the story represents a different (but equally shallow) facet of rage. It's all just an elaborate setup to preach about gun control and how our society is increasingly a society of rage. What the world needs, the movie is saying, is a little more self- control and understanding. Obviously, what it also needs is a better use of such a talented cast. --Andy Spletzer
It's the Rage Reviews:
I HAVE A GUN... SO DO I... ME TOO... 
2006-01-09 - I think the film got a little problem - it has hard time establishing itself in a genre. On one hand it's satirical and funny story but seems that it has too much morality about it. On the other hand, if it's a morality tale, it's not as serious as a morality tale should be.
Here we have a bunch of characters whose paths intersect chaotically: Warren - an extremely jealous husband, Annabel - a girl mad about money, Sidney - her junkie brother, Chris - an inhibited and sedated homosexual, Morgan - eccentric computer genius. All they have in common - are handguns, these people can't imagine themselves without weapons. Well, and the fact that they all are a bit crazy. And I guess that was one of the messages of the movie - all people are weirdos of their own kind, and it's irresponsible to let them have guns, because a situation may occur when they won't be able to restrain their emotions. And such situations eventually happen in this picture as you can guess. Its moral - guns are evil - is shown to us in every possible way although rather light-hearted and humoristic. Therefore not very convincing.
But if to take "It's the Rage" as a comedy, it works just fine. There's a lot of hilarious moments, and the episode with Giovanni Ribisi's character in a shooting range ("Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me?! Well, there's nobody else here, so you must be talking to me!") is one of the funniest I've seen lately. Besides brilliant Ribisi there are many excellent actors here: Joan Allen, Jeff Daniels, Robert Forster, Anna Paquin, David Schwimmer, Josh Brolin and Gary Sinise. They all are a solid reason to watch the movie.
GREAT Performances by all the cast & director but NO Message
2003-07-29 - This movie ain't that bad as portrayed by the amazon reviwers on this site. I thought all the actors were superb. The shoplifter from X Men showed another dimension I never knew she had. All in all every actor was solid here and I adored them all. The film, what with being coined as an anti-gun (ala Bowling For Columbine) satire or commentary didn't really hit a chord with this viewer in that sense. But never the less it did have a strong plot. I patcularly liked Gary Sinies's character complaining about a common problem in todays society - too much information. Also the special effects in his billionaires house's many TV Screens were great and hi-tech. There was a couple of times I laughed out loud during this movie btw. So it's dark comedy with a twist indeed.
Scattershot 
2003-02-01 - Based on a play (which I've never seen), "It's the Rage" follows an ensemble of coincidentally linked characters either perpetrating or victimized by gun violence of all kinds. The ultimate message-a gun is the only thing separating an ordinary but otherwise stressed out person from becoming a murderer-seems reasonable. But the film's flashy and shallow textures undercut its own serious agenda. Or maybe it's the other way around. In either case, "It's the Rage" may be intriguing on its Tarantino-esque surface and commendable for its anti-gun social message, but the film can't help but fail as these two impulses fight it out. Ultimately, "It's the Rage is bloodless in every sense of the word.
...brilliant!!! 
2002-09-24 - a lot of people miss the point labeling this as anti-gun propaganda. its not saying "guns are bad, dont use guns", its making fun of the cheesy crime movies meant to portray human nature and street life and all that mess. there's all these movies beating the same cliche characters into the ground... this movie takes EVERY cliche crime movie character you have EVER seen and puts them all in a big gun totin wad
if you dont instantly label it as one of those "guns kill people" movies, you should have a great time watching it, its just a beautiful movie man, absolutely beautiful
Godawful morality tale missing the point
2002-04-22 - For a while, I thought this movie was some sort of scathing satire. Of what, I wasn't sure, but there are some absolutely hysterical and stupid things that go on in this movie. Apparently, the intention of this farce is to be some sort of moral commentary on guns in our society. Unfortunately for IT'S THE RAGE, in order for a morality tale to be at all successful, it has to be watchable AND believable. This movie, supposedly anti-firearm, is at its most hilarious when the firearms are being waved about.
The "ensemble" cast has many fine, fine actors, all of whom probably thought that by making this movie, the world would be a better place and they could pick up a paycheck at the same time. Oh well.
Ribisi is hilarious as the meth-junkie with paranoid schizophrenia. His scene in the shooting range is one of the most amusing things I've ever seen. His little kleptomaniac whore of a sister was also really funny, but I recommend seeing Reese Witherspoon in FREEWAY. Also, the scene in the bar where everyone goes for their gun at once was absolutely hilarious! If only they all shot each other, the credits would have rolled, we would have satisfylingly hit rewind. Alas.
Jeff Daniels is funny as the psychopathic white-bred suburban slimeball. Many of his lines were really sharp, and since we didn't care about his dead business partner, why should we? Gary Sinise is a great actor who is once again unfortunately cast, this time as the mentally imbalanced and paranoid recluse billionaire. Gary Schwimmer, ala FRIENDS, plays a gay guy with all the brilliance that cliche can deliver. THIS character suffers from manic depression. There is also a former assistant of the paranoid billionaire who works in a video store and suffers from romantic delusions. We just KNOW he's not fit for survival in THIS ugly, ugly world.
To all of these loopy, unintentionally comic parts we have Joan Allen as the "straightman." She goes through the film having bad day after bad day. As if people weren't awful BEFORE they invented guns. One of the prerequisites of inventing guns in the first place is awfulness, thus the supposed MORAL of this tale is missing the point.
This movie has many problems: superficial characters, goofy script, "missed points", blathering pretentiousness, inane coincidences, unintentional self-parody, etcetera.
What are we to morally conclude from IT'S THE RAGE? Not that society would be better off without guns. Certainly not that guns CAUSE rage in society. Rather, we can draw the lesson from this movie a point that is actually pretty obvious and uncontroversial: psychopaths, manic depressives, paranoid schizophrenics, kleptomaniac whoring minors, and insane billionaires ought not to have guns....well duh. IT'S THE RAGE wants to be anti-gun, yet its case for solving the symptoms fails. It does --sorta-- make the case that we really need to deal with the disease.
