There's something fishy going on in Detroit

Crimewave (1985)

A movie written by Joel and Ethan Coen, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell and Brion James amongst others must be good, right? Well not exactly, but one crazy goofball comedy it surely is. Vic (Reed Birney) is a convict on his way to the electric chair, as the officers are dragging him to meet his maker he is screaming for innocence. Then we are told as a flashback a devious tale of deception and murder, in the form of an action packed slapstick comedy. Sam Raimi himself wants to disown this movie and reading about the troubles he went through while making it, I can't blame him. Having his lead actor, editor and composer replaced by the studio is not exactly a great way to make a movie. Anyway this movie is not as bad as it at start seems. The cartoon-like over acting is a bit tedious and as it's boosted with wacky sound effects it goes so much over the top I didn't know wether to laugh or cry. But as the story goes over the top as well, it turns into a quite an entertaining goofball comedy. The acting is rather bad, though mostly deliberately so. The soundtrack is quite annoying at times and the silly sound effects didn't help it at all. But the movie looks quite good and manages to set a great mood for the crazy things happening on the screen. That's the reason why this movie squeezes above the average of it's kind.
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