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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Sundance Channel Home Entertainment
Salesrank: 102382
Released: April 1, 2005 |
| Our Price: $7.41 |
| Used Price: $2.05 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Studio: Arts Alliance America Release Date: 02/26/2008
Description of Rick:
Rick is a rare feature that makes intelligent and exciting use of audience bewilderment. From its opening scenes, this quirky update of Verdi's Rigoletto thrusts viewers into a bizarre corporate culture in which mean-spiritedness, adolescent high jinks, and general dimwittedness are the norm, but there is no explanation as to why. Yet it's impossible to turn away from the madness and decadence of scenes in which Bill Pullman's middle-aged executive, Rick, engages in monstrous behavior toward subordinates or exchanges in fraternal obscenities with his young, clueless boss, Duke (Aaron Stanford), who is routinely enjoying anonymous, online sex with Rick's daughter, Eve (Agnes Bruckner). Screenwriter Daniel Handler, better known to the world as author Lemony Snicket, and director Curtiss Clayton slowly introduce enough background to unlock the central tragedy in this tale, and lead everyone to a shared, startling destiny. Cinematographer Lisa Rinzler (Pollock) sets everything against a fantastic cityscape and voyeuristic hell. --Tom Keogh
Rick Reviews:
Being mean, rude and blowing people off will come back to haunt you 
2009-08-07 - Wasn't a "Dark Comedy" - just DARK. Rick got what he deserved for being rude, mean, unscrupulous and careless. Unfortunately, his dumb daughter had to pay for it; with her life. The perverted "BIGBOSS" got what he wanted and got away Scott-free. The interviewee/fired waitress/storage space attendant's curse on Rick, worked. That's it. Lousy movie.
No Classic, But Still a Great Time 
2007-05-30 - If the guys from IN THE COMPANY OF MEN had been even more cartoonishly evil and crass, they would be the characters in this movie. And the fact is, those very traits make some bits in this satire absolutely hilarious.
Both of the male leads in this film, Rick and Big Boss (who is half Rick's age), seem to compete for the designation of Bad Guy. Equally sleazy, both characters pull stunts that will literally make you gasp. The opening exchange between Bill Pullman and Sandra Oh may be the most politically incorrect scene in all of film. And it's classic.
No need for a scene-by-scene analysis here. Suffice it to say, there's intrigue, there's back-biting, double-dealing, and really a lot more than I expected when I purchased the DVD from the $1 box at my local store. This is a fun movie with a truly shocking surprise ending (which makes no sense once you think it through). For fans of pointed social satire, this is a film for you.
A Waste of Time & the Acting Talent 
2007-02-14 - This film is pointless, for many reasons. Not the least of which is that it's a bad bastardization of Victor Hugo's Le Roi s'Amuse (and Verdi's Rigoletto).
It gets off to an intriguing start, though. Meet Rick (Bill Pullman) - the office jerk. He's a fairly unlikable guy, but that's because his wife was killed. Rick is also pushed around by his less-talented, half-his-age boss. So an old schoolmate says for $10,000 he'll kill any one person of his choosing. What do you do?
If you're Rick, you let yourself get pushed into something you don't want to do, and you make racial slurs on not one but two occasions to Sandra Oh, keep her from getting a new job and get her fired from her old one. So it's kind of hard to root for old Rick.
This film seems to want to tell us something, some truth about the human condition, but what?
That all receptionists are mean? That all bosses are evil? That they always have clichéd, drunkard wives? That you can never get over the loss of a loved one? That grieving people are easily manipulated? That it's okay to be racist against Asians? That there are no good people, anywhere, ever?
In the end, it's a waste of the acting talents of Bill Pullman, Agnes Bruckner, Sandra Oh, and Dylan Baker.
Stylish and an interesting plot
2005-10-08 - The only bad part is that it is too long. Still with its flaws, it's still an interesting story about karma.
If this isn't a cult classic, it darn well should be 
2005-07-30 - Talk about your series of unfortunate events! Scriptwriter Daniel Handler (the man behind Lemony Snicket) delivers up a thoroughly adult tale of power, greed, lust, innocence lost, and seemingly foreordained tragedy in Rick. The movie may be patterned on Verdi's opera Rigoletto, yet the presentation of this story is uniquely memorable; it's a brilliant, intelligent, quirky dark comedy/morality tale that really should be a cult classic. Bill Pullman has finally made a believer out of me; I don't know why I have found it somewhat difficult to like him in the past, but he's really zoomed up my personal rankings of actors with his effort here. He may well be the only actor that could have pulled this role off to the maximum effect - it's a nuanced, quirky performance that samples just about all of the spectrums of modern life. When we first meet Rick, he's a jerk - pure and simple. Some viewers seemingly never got over that, but for me, this character quickly developed into a likeable, albeit unfortunate, human being filled with regrets yet seemingly trapped in a persona that he truly abhors in his heart. His love for his late wife emerges through his interaction with his somewhat wayward daughter Eve (Agnes Bruckner - and let me just say that the mental image I associate with the name Agnes has now been put completely on its head), and his contempt for his boss and co-workers - and thereby himself - becomes increasingly obvious.
Rick's boss Duke (Aaron Stanford), aka BigBoss, is a complete jerk and a pervert. When he and Rick are together, it's all fun and games, a contest to see who can step on more of the little people around them. The vindictiveness we see in Rick's character is fuelled by his secret hatred of Duke, who is young enough to be his son. In the tradition of reaping what you sow, Rick is inflicted with a "Chinese curse" by a young lady (Sandra Oh) whom he humiliated in an interview before also getting her fired from her current job. Before he can even laugh that threat off, a former college buddy shows up out of nowhere offering to help Rick get to the top. When the BigBoss is a kid, there's really only one surefire method of getting him out of the way of your professional development. Rick wants no part of such nonsense, but his reasoning changes as his life proceeds to come apart at the seams. In a real sense, all he has in his life is his daughter Eve, and she's something of a handful. Things develop in such a way that, for personal as well as business reasons, Rick wants Duke to disappear.
It's true that the ending doesn't exactly jump out at you and surprise you, but a good movie is not defined by a good, surprising conclusion - it's how you get to that conclusion, and Rick (the film) forges an unforgettable path from here to there. It's a dark comedy that morphs into a tragedy, and I found it incredibly compelling from beginning to end - and, as far as I'm concerned - it's brilliantly done. A lot of the humor is quick and subtle, but it all contributes to a virtual pillaging of business as usual in the modern world. Odd but effective camera angles and a disquieting soundtrack made up of darkly modified Christmas tunes effects a surreal atmosphere for the drama that unfolds, marking Rick as a definite modern morality play. The writing is sharp, incisive, biting, and wonderfully interconnected, with Handler tying ever plot element together in a way few writers can match. This is a brilliant motion picture that does not deserve its current state of obscurity.
