32 lines
2.3 KiB
Plaintext
32 lines
2.3 KiB
Plaintext
edward burns tackles his third picture with no looking back , and like his previous two , it is a working-class relationship picture .
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however , unlike his previous work , the film dwells on a more personal story , and with a female protagonist .
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and in no looking back , he stumbles , making a slow , boring film without the spark that enlivened his previous work .
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claudia ( lauren holly ) is a small town waitress who is feeling stifled by her life .
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she's at a turning point in her life , and feels as if she's going nowhere .
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her boyfriend , michael ( jon bon jovi ) , is broke and in a dead end job .
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if she were to marry him , she'd never get a chance to escape this town .
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enter charlie ( edward burns ) , claudia's old flame .
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he skipped town several years before , without any explanations . . . even
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for claudia .
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he has come back to town to see her , and suddenly she is torn .
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should she stay with stable michael , and never escape her hometown . . . or
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should she ignore her instincts and fall for charlie again .
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part of the answer lies in the character of her mother ( blythe danner ) , who fell for the wrong man . . . and has spent her life pining for claudia's father to return .
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now it seems that claudia is about to make the same mistakes .
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at only a little past ninety minutes , no looking back is rather short for its genre .
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unfortunately , it seems much much longer .
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the storyline is simple and uninspired , and there's a lack of energy to the whole proceedings , which makes the entire drama rather tedious .
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edward burns makes a misstep by casting himself in the crucial role as the egomaniacal old flame .
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there's no one to restrain his ego , which reigns unchecked .
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he walks into the room and lauren holly swoons . . . yeah ,
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right .
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lauren holly does what she can with her central character .
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but we never understand why her character makes such pathetically bad decisions . . . and
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we never really care .
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bon jovi is the only sympathetic character in the whole movie .
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his acting talents are much greater than they might seem , but he is given a mostly bland and ineffective role to work with .
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there's not much to recommend in no looking back .
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it's not that the film is bad . . . it's
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simply boring .
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there's no zest in any aspect of the film , and no reason to spend ninety minutes watching it .
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