User reviews

Not John Landis's proudest moment. I'm not sure what his last movie was before directing (and writing!) this forgettable dark comedy, but it seems as if he took a long break from the business. You would think he'd make a big revival, after his many successes with such hit comedies as "Animal House," "Trading Places" and "Coming to America." Wrong.

I'm not going to be entirely negative. I was laughing a lot during the first and second acts. The film never quite hits the comic bull's eye, but it starts out on a positive note with many funny and entertaining moments. The characters are never well-developed, and it's obvious that Landis was leaning towards a dark farce, but I let that slide at first. Towards the end, the one-joke premise is stretched to the point where we're watching a series of violent dream sequences, which get quite repetitive. The film loses all focus, and the audience is given the run-around.

The cast is promising. Rob Schneider has a few funny sequences. Dan Aykroyd looks cool as a snide, tough-guy biker dude. The women are sexy, led by Natassja Kinski. However, I will give a warning. I'm a man and I'm not offended by female nudity; in fact, I enjoy it. But for all women who are offended by the "degrading of females" in countless motion pictures will probably croak on this one. Those who saw Landis's landmark comedy "Animal House" know his tendency to insert gratuitous nudity to catch the attention of his male viewers, but in that film it better fit the tone. In this case, I think he was pushing it. I don't know if it was exactly necessary to show Thomas Haden-Church doing Lara Flynn Boyle doggystyle. As I said, I'm not offended, but prudish women probably will be.

The soundtrack is awfully one-note. It's as if Landis was running way, way underbudget and could only fit one theme song into the soundtrack. Though I was laughing most of the way, I couldn't help but feel this film was way under par--especially for a man of Landis's talent. The last thirty minutes is all over the map, and Landis seemed to have written those final scenes in his sleep.

Altogether not bad, but not too good either.

My score: 5 (out of 10)

Although funny at moments "Susan's plan" fails to provide a meaningful plot, it basically revolves around money, the amount of which is not even revealed. The acting is nothing special and there is the absence of humor from Rob Schneider. The positive side of this movie is you get to see practically every female actress in it naked. The stunningly beautiful Lara Flynn Boyle is one of the main reasons why I give this movie 6/10

I liked this movie only because Nastassja Kinski starred in it, and it was kind of a different role for her. She usually plays victim types, but in this she's not so nice. I wish the movie had been better scripted and edited. Too many things don't make sense. Why should we think Adrian Paul is worth killing? He's supposed to be not worth much, but we never know why. The ending is practically non-existent. It just runs out of steam and dies. Having said that, there were a few funny moments. Enough to rent a video for? Probably not, unless like me, you like one of the leads.

We picked up the DVD and thought, "Hey, with a cast like this and with John Landis directing, it's got to be worth at least a look. I mean, Landis did 'Blues Brothers', didn't he?" I also need to point out that we are big Dan Ackroyd fans and will watch, at least once, anything the man puts on film. Man, were we disappointed.

Rather than beat a dead horse, we'll just throw a few adjectives and phrases your direction: disjointed, bad editing, failing jokes (the fart jokes were the funniest, if this gives you an idea), no closure, redundant, unnecessary and distracting segues, gratuitous sex scenes (although Lara Flynn Boyles is very appealing, just not enough screen time to make it interesting!).

We watched this movie and braved the hour and a half hoping it would get better and that the cacophony of subplots would somehow congeal into a cohesive crescendo. Not happening. Just got worse and left us feeling like we wasted the popcorn.

Do not rent this movie. If you need a Dan Ackroyd fix, just rent "Grosse Pointe Blank" or even "Ghostbusters." And if you need a Rob Schneider fix, I understand 'Deuce Bigalow' was 'Citizen Kane' compared to this fine piece of...art.

What the hell has happened to John Landis? Not that he was ever a genius behind the camera, but he did make some genuinely entertaining and original films. `Susan's Plan', however, isn't one of them. The reason I watched this was for the cast, which boasts many talented performers, but I felt bad for them by the end, which is a slapdash mess. The film starts off promisingly enough, but much like the titular `…Plan', this movie falls apart by the third act.

One of the rules of this site discourages blowing the ends of movies, and I'll respect that, but be prepared for a weak, very predictable conclusion. This film is also chockablock with dream sequences, which were a forgivable indulgence in `An American Werewolf in London', but in this seemed like a copout filmic device for audience misdirection that mainly seemed included to pad out a very thin script to feature length. It's also got plenty of gratuitous female nudity, which is pleasant to look at, but kind of made me feel bad for the actresses, especially Lara Flynn Boyle. Time for her to get a new agent. In this case I think the actresses were exploited, but hey, it's a Landis movie.

Maybe an adequately diverting watch on cable if you're laid low by the flu or something, but if you're feeling fine, watch a good movie or go out and enjoy your life. Get some fresh air. Ninety minutes could be better spent doing something other than becoming embroiled in `Susan's Plan'.

I rented this movie becuase Michael Biehn was in it, and found it surprisingly good. Biehn, in his first comedic role, really shines. He brings an interesting airheadedness to the role which is a fun change to his usual mega-serious roles in other films. However, the film is also filled with humorous portayls by Lara Flynn Bolye, Nastassja Kinski and Billy Zane. Rob Schneider, Thomas Haden Church and Adrian Paul also give semi-funny performences, and Dan Akroyd plays a barely believable, but funny role as "Bob". The plot is very cliched and rather normal, but the film is very funny and the charecters interesting to watch. It was a very pleasent surprise, this film. Highly reccomended to fans of Biehn, Kinski, Boyle or just fans of good comedies.

Stars: Natassja Kinski, Billy Zane, Lara Flynn Boyle, Rob Schnieder, Michael Bien, Dan Aykroyd, Thomas Hayden Church and Joey Travolta.

This was a genuinely funny movie with great performances. It's a kill the husband get the money plotted film, but John Landis's script is surprisingly fresh. I'll start with the actors. Dan Aykroyd was my favorite performer as the humorless gangster. His lack of humor in the film is actually the funniest part of it. Schnieder and Bien are good as the two buddies in the film. Lara Flynn Boyle is hilarious as the slutty hairdresser. Now my problem with the film was the horrible ending. The plot felt so unresolved and it ended on such a horrible note that it ruined the rest of the film for me.

My rating: ** out of ****. 86 mins. rated R for Sex/Nudity, Gory Violence and Language.

People had been dumping on this film a lot so I made sure to check all the other Landis movies I could before trying this one out. Susan's Plan is a low budget "a bunch of people talking to each other" movie with a very simple plot - the title character comes up with a plan to whack her ex husband with the help of her friends and split the insurance money, but the plan goes wrong and hilarity ensues.

Susan's Plan, even if obviously smaller, is still classic Landis. The low budget is compensated by a strong narrative and a myriad of colorful characters who're rather at home in the Dream On universe, than in bigger Landis movies. Almost everybody in this movie is famous for one thing or the other, even the small parts, just check out the cast. The most unexpected performance comes from Michael Biehn, I'm not sure if he ever played something so funny and against type, because it's a role one would expect Jim Carey to play. Thomas Haden Church seems to be playing Peter Weller. Lisa Edelstein is all Cuddy again. And Dan Aykroyd's character is just really sick!

Susan's Plan feels constructed around cheap and accessible locations and well known, but inexpensive actors, and it's very well done at that. At just 85 minutes it appears to have some padding scenes of various importance, like characters' dream sequences, Susan's day job as a teacher, or Stuart Gordon as a doctor telling a dirty joke, but it's done to make a full creative use of a location. One thing that I found amazing was how Landis and his actors manage to switch between something really funny, or plain silly to something suspenseful and genuinely scary almost all in a single scene. Overall it's a small crime comedy for midnight TV that looks bigger than it actually is. I really liked it and I recommend it.

Do you ever get the sense that John Landis has no idea what he's doing? You get to a point in a filmmaker's career where he should simply be incapable of making a movie this bad. He should have developed skills across the decades of his career that would have prevented him from making any host of choices he makes in this quick one million dollar film he made in the wake of the disappointing and frustrating experience of making Blues Brothers 2000. The only saving grace for Landis professionally here is that he obviously worked very fast to get this done. It was more of a piece of personal therapy for Landis than an attempt at art, I suspect. Maybe he should have kept it in a drawer instead of releasing it, though.

Whenever this movie is talked about (which is not often), it's marked as part of the post-Tarantino influence world, but I see it more in line with Fargo by the Coen Brothers. It's supposed to be blackly comic and a crime film, but the central problem is that Landis has no idea how to tell this story in the way that the Coens could. It's about the attempted murder of Paul (Adrian Paul), ex-husband to Susan (Nastassja Kinski), because Susan wants the payout from his life insurance policy that she's still the sole beneficiary of. This was cooked up by her boyfriend Sam (Billy Zane) who works for the insurance company run by the father of his ex Penny (Lisa Edelstein). The include their two friends Bill (Michael Biehn) and Steve (Rob Schneider) to actually do the murder, and Steve's girlfriend Betty (Lara Flynn Boyle) to lure Paul to the right place at the right time.

So, I think it's easy to see the Coen Brothers influence here. People who have no idea what they're doing trying to commit a crime for money. It really is just Fargo in Los Angeles but terrible. Why is it terrible? Well, first of all, there's nothing funny in this film. There are no jokes. There is no situational humor. It's simply dead on arrival from a comedic perspective. Steve and Bill being dumb and bad and doing murder isn't enough for a laugh, but I think that's all Landis provided Biehn and Schneider to get them through their moments. Betty being a loose woman and hitting on every man she meets isn't funny in and of itself, though there are moments where it's obvious Landis is trying to make comedy happen (she makes out with Paul's doctor outside his room right before going inside to make out with him). It doesn't actually work, but the attempt is there.

So, it's generally just not funny. Not a good start for a black comedy. What else we got? Well, there's the story, and what little Landis puts into the script for story wanes thin by about the halfway point of this less than 90 minute long film. They do the murder in a very quick cut before any explanation of what's going on is actually given to the audience about ten minutes into the film, Paul survives the attempt on his life, ends up in the hospital, and the movie just kind of grinds to a halt. There's no real drive to anything as they get together in rooms to talk about how much they've screwed up, or Steve wonders if Penny is being faithful to him or Bill decides to go to his cousin's to play video games, or Sam gets caught by Penny and has to include her. There's no structure to this, no sense of escalating tension and stakes, helped not at all that these are uninteresting and terrible people that the audience isn't going to care about.

Landis also makes a repeated choice that defies logic and explanation. He keeps having his characters fall asleep and imagine bloody ends to everything. It's a bit surprising the first time it happens, but he literally does it six times. There's one moment where he does it three times in a row, one right after the other. It's embarrassing as a creative decision that, instead of amping up the tension in this film with no real reason for existing, actually deflates it greatly.

And then Dan Aykroyd is there as a biker, Betty's ex, and the planned final step in making sure Paul is dead, a role that really ends up going just this side of nowhere.

I mean, this is embarrassing. This is terrible. This is Landis' low point. I get that he was frustrated with Universal after the mess that was the production of Blues Brothers 2000, but couldn't he have gotten one of his many, many friends in the industry to give his script a once-over?

Right up until the ending, I had been enjoying this film. It's dark humour and well defined characters brought together by a great cast. It was very interesting to watch Michael Biehn play someone very different to his usual characters.

The only (and unfortunately, quite a major) drawback to this film was its ending, which made it look like the writer ran out of ideas and after deciding they were bored, quickly slammed on a hurried ending.

I gave this film a 6/10 (because mainly, the ending killed the whole film for me).

I actually didn't expect this film to very funny, as the cover mostly made it look like more of an action movie - but as it turns out it was very very funny. Great actors, great story and plot twists everywhere! It reminded a bit of "Two Days In L.A." but this one was far better. Most comedies nowadays have enough good jokes in them to last about ten minutes, but John Landis proves that movies like this still can be made.

With some wonderful names attached to this film you would expect to see some great acting... no disappointment there. All the main cast were superb in their roles.

So why am I not enthusing over this film. There seemed to be something just slightly off key with the humour. It had all the trappings of being exceptional but, perhaps it went a little too far overboard and became a little confusing - in the 'why did the Director want to do that?' sense of the word.

The highs: Michael Biehn as the inept, would-be-killer, Bill, stuck in the closet with panicking Billy Zane's Insurance salesman and Bill's 'flatulent' best buddy.

Dan Ackroyd in a wonderful deadpan role as 'Bob'.

The Lows: The script - it was a little too flat and I am amazed the actors did such a great job given some of the lines they had to work with.

With the introductory titles at the beginning of the movie, one can sense that this film is in big trouble. After all, how much emphasis should a palm tree receive - shot and reshot via redundant closeups and pull backs? The first set of scenes seems to set the tenor of the movie and is a grand hint that what follows has the potential of being awful. Cheesy sets, lousy dialogue, poor editing - all worthy of a ninth grade film buff student in his first big homework assignment. The framing of the shots almost seem to be out of "How to Make a Movie 101," with the subsequent movie having a very cook booked feeling or how to make a movie by the numbers.

Somewhere about the 30 minute mark, it becomes exceedingly difficult to suppress the thought that the producer, director, and writer, John Landis, should not be taken outside and shot. It is amazing how he can take a more than capable cast and have most of them looking like low IQ dimwits. The movie's only saving grace is that it is highly uneven, meaning that there is something there to almost balance out its dreadfulness, but not quite. That factor is Dan Aykroyd whose reputation as a comedian proceeds him and without that awareness, the movie would be a complete failure. As the character, Bob, Akyroyd does his version of Tom Hanks in "Road to Perdition" - a deadly serious killer whose lack of on screen humor makes him very funny.

The basic plot of the movie is contained within its title, "Dying to Get Rich! --- Susan's Plan," and revolves around Susan, played by Nastassja Kinski, scheming to get rid of her ex-husband to collect his insurance money. Characterizing the film as a "black comedy" cannot mask its gross deficiencies. It is painful to watch an actress of Nastassja's caliber having to mouth some of the lines that are liberally interspersed with a four letter word, starting with "f" and ending in "k." This must be a Guinness world record for Nastassja uttering the "f" word in any of her movies. It is my fervent hope that Nastassja will never have to attend a film festival of her works and have to provide commentary on a frame to frame basis for this movie.

Because this movie is like a sitting duck, it is too easy to blast it out of the water. One scene has the major participants openly discussing the murder in a crowded, public restaurant! The awkwardness and stiffness of some of the scenes should constitute a nice lesson on how-not-to-make a movie. This is one movie that not even Nastassja can escape unscathed as she leads her merry band of idiots down a path of ruin.

This movie was one of the most disjointed, strange, contrived, hard-to-follow (and not really worth the effort) movies I've ever seen. There were so many holes. For example, we are told that Adrian Paul's character was bad and we're supposed to believe his death would not be a tremendous loss. But why? We have no idea why he "deserves to die" other than the fact that his ex-wife stands to gain a lot of money (of which she has plenty, anyway)! And if I had to see one more scene of gratuitous sex, I think I may have become violently ill.

This supposedly is a comedy. Ha, ha. It's more like a strange hallucination without the prerequisite of medication. Many scenes seem completely pointless, and many others seem to be designed solely because somebody promised somebody that he/she could be in the movie and a minor cameo had to be created. (Example: Michael Biehn's character's cousin. If anyone can explain why that character was necessary, I'll give him/her a dollar -- and that's nearly one-fourth of the total amount I wasted renting this movie!)

It will be a very cold day in a notoriously hot place before I feel compelled to waste a couple of hours on this one again.

I really wanted to love this movie. It had a great cast and… John Landis

! But… This is not a Landis movie, just some sub-par Tarantino-like

story, lazily executed, where annoying nightmares takes up the role of

the disjointed-time sequences you find in any Tarantino wanabee (And

there are already too many of 'em…). It seems that the cast and Landis

were so happy to work together that they didn't care about the end

product. Unfortunately, that's what we viewers have to endure. It's not

THAt bad and the acting is really energetic, but it all seems wasted.

Now, if Mr Joe Dante would just give us another of his zany, wonderful

movies, I'd be a happy P

I've seen this film this evening with my wife and I'm very perplexed about it. I think John Landis is near a genius - The Blues Brothers are there to show it - but this is a tired film with some great gags. The cast of characters is very good and Dan (Aykroyd, obviously) play a splendid cameo but I'm not satisfied at all. I understand that directors are not always thinking about a masterpiece but some more diligence would be appreciated. However - Landis is Landis - your money and your time will be well spent.

Hard to say what went wrong with this movie. Great cast and a director famous for his funny films - but somehow the pieces of the puzzle don't fit together. Everything is a bit lame. Except for the unexpected dream sequences, the film holds few surprises and just doesn't make me laugh as often as it should. Worth watching for the fans of Dan Aykroyd, though, because he's never had the opportunity to play such a mean tough guy before (as far as I know). Nastassja Kinski still got the magic: I love the moment in the prison cell, when she looks at the other prisoner and doesn't know if she wants to cry or laugh... (Voted 6/10)

This was a fun little movie with a good all round cast.

Michael Biehn was excellent along with Rob Schneider who play a couple of hopeless criminals caught up in a deadly scam gone wrong. They rest of the cast fit in well with a fun character in Dan Aykroyd playing the movie hard man. A well thought out movie with fun twists and turns to keep you guessing. The plot of the film does get a bit disjointed at times with perhaps too many characters involved which makes it easy to lose track as the story goes on.

If you take the movie for what it is, it will be a very enjoyable crime comedy watch.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and would recommend it to most people.

I can't really say that this was a good movie, as much as I'd like to say so, but some of the performances in the film are pretty funny. I think Michael Biehn is terrific and he is easily the best character in the film. I also think Rob Schneider and Billy Zane give good supporting performances. Some of the gags are hilarious, but this Landis film can't compare to most of the stuff he's done in the past.

In most of the comments I've seen, haven't seen any comments on Adrian Paul's performance. I happen to be a rather big fan of his and am trying to be patient about when I will be able to see the movie. I have no idea of when it goes to video and if the networks are going to air it, but I am sure everyone on the film did a bang up job, and I mean everyone, including the grips and other BEHIND the scene peoples.

It's little unusual genre for John Landis. I got used to his good comedies, like "Coming to America" or "Trading places". This one is good movie too and it's "black comedy". But I like this movie. Sometimes it's funny and very stupid. Characters during the whole movie find oneselves to the most stupid situation. And this all cross with the strong violence and sexuality. So I can call this movie "The standard of black comedies".

Incoherent, unfunny John Landis comedy about a team of buffoons who try to pull off the perfect crime. Story is poorly structured with characters just running all over the place. Biehn is the only performance that raised my eyebrow. A grown man who spends his time playing Nintendo Games! How creative! Look out folks, he may play Lear next!

This is a funny, nonsense movie that should not ever be taken literally. I laughed almost all the way through it. I have only one criticism of the list of cast members. Most of the lists (including the one broadcasted on Max) neglect to mention Adrian Paul as the guy all the others are trying to kill. Can't you tell? I'm a huge fan of Adrian's. Anyway, at the showing here in Dallas my daughter-in-law went with me to the film festival. She really likes John Landis & was thrilled to meet him & get his autograph. She told him the only reason she was there was because her mother-in-law-(me) was one of Adrian's following. (Of course, there were others of us in the audience as well). Mr.Landis asked her if I approved of how he used him in the film. She responded yes, that I did. Since this was the first time I had the opportunity to see Mr. Paul on the big screen, it is a night I shan't forget. Well worth seeing.