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Choke
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MPAA RATING: R for strong sexual content, nudity and language
Starring Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Brad William Henke, and Kelly Macdonald
Choke is a wickedly colorful dark comedy about mothers and sons, sexual compulsion, and the sordid underbelly of Colonial theme parks. Victor Mancini, a sex-addicted med-school dropout, who keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida, in an expensive private medical hospital by working days as a historical re-enactor at a Colonial Williamsburg theme park. At night Victor runs a scam by deliberately choking in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who “save” him. When, in a rare lucid movement, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father’s identity, Victor enlists the aid of his best friend, Denny and his mother’s beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall, to solve the mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever. (Fox Searchlight)
| GENRE(S): | Comedy | Drama |
| WRITTEN BY: |
Chuck Palahniuk (novel)
Clark Gregg |
| DIRECTED BY: | Clark Gregg |
| RELEASE DATE: | Theatrical: September 26, 2008 |
| RUNNING TIME: | 89 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: | USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The average user rating for this movie is 5.7 (out of 10) based on 14 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
John S. gave it a3:
Went in expecting satirical and edgy. Left feeling like I'd witnessed a long and painful bowel movement, from every conceivable angle.
Chad S. gave it a7:
In M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village", the period detail of the rustic homestead was perfect except for one tiny detail; the tombstones in the villagers' graveyard looked too new. Vincent's boss at a colonial theme park is constantly on the prowl for such anachorisms: a wigless pate, a newspaper, a handjob. Vincent(Sam Rockwell) is a sex addict. He doesn't have to choke the chicken(fifteen times a day!!!) like his best friend Denny(Brad William Henke). Ladies love Vincent: Ursula(Bijou Phillips) risks having her check docked by their Colloquial Old English-speaking boss, who probably knows that manual stimulation of the johnson was rare in the 19th century. Even doctors can't resist the tour guide. "Choke" also recalls "The Sixth Sense" in the way the filmmaker skillfully guards its secret from the audience through careful staging. Vincent isn't dead, but his heart is. The doctor(Kelly MacDonald) sees this. She sees crazy people. Vincent supplements his income by choking on food in public eateries. It's hard to believe that total strangers would feel responsible for Vincent's life, so much so that they'd actually send him money, but then again, Fred Flintstone felt obliged to look after a con-man(J. Montague Gypsum in an episode of "The Flintstones" called "This is Your Lifesaver") after luring him off a bridge. The near-death experience scam is for a good cause, though. Vincent wants his mother(Anjelica Huston) to have the best medical care possible. She plays a big part in her son's life, and unfortunately, the story suffers for it. If "Choke" performed the Heimlich Maneuver on itself, expelling some, if not all, of Vincent's childhood flashback scenes with Ida on the lam, it would alleviate some of the overstatement that the narrative makes about Vincent's inability to love Paige, since the son's arrested development already has an explanation through his frequent visits at the institution with his mother. Getting to know the people in Vincen't encounter group would've made better use of the film's running time. But the film is smart about reigning in the fantastical impressions that people have about Vincent at the hospital. The doctor is a hilariously fallible storyteller.
Mark gave it a0:
Have yet to see the film. For anyone who thinks Chuck is a talented writer, try this exercise: please read, or re-read the first couple of sentences to Choke, then please open the first books of Lemony Snickets "A Series of Unfortunate Events: A Bad Beginning." Not only does it appear as if Chucky lifted the idea, he did a shitty job of executing it. Snickets book is obviously geared for children and has afar superior prose style. How anyone above the age of sixteen could have opened the book "Choke" and read beyond the first two sentences is beyond me.
Michael S. gave it a2:
Definitely disagree with Tom. Choke was a great book and one of the first I would translate to the screen because of all the visual comedy in the book. But the execution of making this movie was awful. Plays more like a Seinfeld episode, complete with ridiculous over-acting and idiotic musical blips. Every actor in the movie was horrible, and the choices of what to include from the book and what to leave out were even worse.
Arctor gave it a7:
I'm surprised the reviews for this are so mixed. Good, dark comedies are rare these days.
joe y gave it a2:
Lame hipster movie for people more concerned with being cool than enjoying a good movie. Recommended only to fans on the writer. You know those cult members who like to pretend they enjoy good fiction, but instead only like shock with no substance.
Darrell S. gave it a9:
it truly was a wonderful adaptation. In all honesty I enjoyed it much more than 'Fight Club,' but then again I enjoyed the book 'Choke' more than the book 'Fight Club.' All the actors portrayed the actors wonderfully, especially Sam Rockwell as Victor, and the chap that played Denny did a wonderful support role. The score lacked a lot, sure their was a Radiohead song at the end, and a few songs here and there, but it feels that the songs were later added by Fox rather than being an original part of the film. The score for 'Fight Club' was amazing and I anticipated 'Choke' to have the same treatment. The cameo by Mr. Palahniuk was awesome. A quick trivia about 'Fight Club:' In every single scene, no matter what, there is a cup of Starbucks coffee (even if it is not visible). If I were to give it a score, easily a 9.5 out of 10. Go see it, pay for those that actually acknowledge Chuck as a great American author, and actually made a decent book to film transition.
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