# All the Rage (1999)

### reviewed by
Jon Popick

    PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
    "We Put the SIN in Cinema"

This film in which guns play a major part in each pivotal scene is probably supposed to start out as humorous look at the impact of firearms in modern society before becoming shockingly appalling in its last reel. The problem is that It's the Rage is neither funny nor disturbing, and even its eclectic A-list cast can't save it from being yet another bad Pulp Fiction rip-off.

Rage begins in the home of Warren and Helen Harding (played by Pleasantville co-stars Jeff Daniels and Joan Allen), a wealthy yet miserable couple that are awakened late one evening by what appears to be a burglar. Warren guns down the intruder in the living room, but it isn't until afterwards that he realizes that the prowler was actually his business partner. Helen thinks her husband knowingly executed his colleague, while Warren assumes that his associate was secretly schtupping his wife. The cops (Robert Forster and Bokeem Woodbine) don't know who to believe but are pretty sure that something fishy is going on.

With murder acting as the final straw for their marriage, Helen moves out and gets a job as an assistant to an insane billionaire named Norton Morgan (Gary Sinise, Mission to Mars), who has made a fortune doing something with computers, while simultaneously developing a fear of any type of information. Norton chased away his previous assistant and now spends his days cooped up in his giant office playing with his cyber-dog and doesn't appear to be too into hygiene (but what computer billionaire is?).

Norton's former assistant (Josh Brolin, The Mod Squad) dreams of making movies for a living but instead finds work as a video store clerk and develops a unhealthy fixation on a bleached-blonde, Bosco-stealing delinquent named Annabel Lee (Anna Paquin, Rogue from X-Men). Rage also features characters played by André Braugher (Frequency), David Schwimmer (Friends) and Giovanni Ribisi (Gone in 60 Seconds), and all of the film's characters are linked to each other, whether they know it or not. In that respect, Rage is a bit like Magnolia or Short Cuts, but not nearly as interesting or as well-executed as either.

While the acting in Rage isn't too bad, the script seems particularly hackneyed. The whole harried-assistant-to-a-psychopath has already been done to perfection by Frank Whalley (Swimming With Sharks) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Big Lebowski). The bickering couple who live in the large, soulless house reeks of Lester and Caroline Burnham (even though Rage was completed before American Beauty was released). I can't think of anything much worse than a film that thinks it's edgy and quirky but just plain isn't.

Rage, which will see a brief theatrical run before bowing on pay television, was directed by James D. Stern, who has recently helmed the IMAX film Michael Jordan to the MAX, as well as directing Stomp on Broadway. The script was written by Keith Reddin, who penned the play Life During Wartime (adapted for the screen as The Alarmist), and Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh (The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle) provides the score.

1:37 – R for adult language, violence and sexual content

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