Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

NateWatchesCoolMovies Slow Burn is.. odd, to say the least. Living up to its title, it pretty much goes nowhere, tagging along with James Spader and Josh Brolin as they stumble around in the desert, both hitting on treasure hunter Minnie Driver, who constantly outwits them. This kind of lower budget, steamy stuff just seems to have a licence to languish, in the sense that story is of little concern, it's more about mood and episodic character interaction than anything else. Spader and Brolin are doing the 'Of Mice & Men' shtick here, playing two hapless escaped convicts, one a sharp tongued weasel (Spader) and the other a dimwitted lug (Brolin). They're kind of lost, in both perpetual arguments and the vast Mojave around them, when they run into Driver, whose presence, and the idea that there's a whole whack of diamonds buried out there somewhere, inevitably stirs things up. The diamonds belonged to her parents, and there's hazy scenes relating back to a tragedy involving her gypsy father (Chris Mulkey, briefly) and a mysterious character played by Stuart Wilson who serves as pseudo-narrator as he wanders around out there too. Got that? It's OK, they barely explain it better than I just did, I've seen the thing twice and I'm still not sure how it all adds up either. Sweat, sand, sensual looks snuck between Brolin and Driver, dreamy atmosphere, threats of violence from Spader's overacted, crazy eyed moron, a treasure hunt and general lack of cohesion is all you'll find out here in this desert. Good for an absent minded watch or for background noise, not much else though.

Bob_the_Hobo Minnie Driver plays a woman looking for diamonds lost by her ancestors out in the desert, when she stumbles upon two criminals (Spader and Brolin) who have miraculously stumbled upon the diamonds on accident, and who quickly take her captive. Driver has to figure out how to get the diamonds to herself and try to ditch her captors, while a mysterious old friend, Stuart Wilson, watches the events unfold from a distance and narrates Driver's past.Minnie Driver makes an adequate lead, but it's James Spader who makes this movie. He plays a real goon; a rat-like voice and the only one with a gun. He gets increasingly desperate to escape his purgatory in the middle of nowhere and make the diamonds his. His mentally slow but good-hearted partner in crime, Brolin, and the antics of Driver lead his character. A great performance that kept me hooked, despite reading the other reviews.Great cinematography to this movie. It's all shot in the desert, and the dry heat is beautifully captured. Ditto for the costumes. Spader and Brolin's bumbling conmen aren't used to the weather, and their faces are chapped and blistered in startlingly realistic fashion. The movie's biggest problem is Stuart Wilson's bizarre, almost random narration. His character isn't very well set up in the beginning and you spend most of the movie trying to figure out his relevance to the story. It's purpose is a way to wrap up the loose ends, but I would have liked the film more if it had just abandoned the explanation of the past and made instead a character study of this trio.Overall, I recommend it.

liberator A really fantastic film, especially considering its low budget. Usually with such independent films one is disappointed in the lack of closeups, or the stiffness of direction, but not at all in this case. What makes this film excellent is its understatement -- any lesser director & cast would have made this tale of self-destructive obsessions into a self-indulgent orgy of overacting and self-consciousness, but this film is utterly believable, and its characters, although they are at the dark edges of human behavior, are entirely sympathetic and real. The script is also excellent and relatively original while harkening back to such classic films as "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "The Maltese Falcon".A high point is James Spader's heavy accent as "Marcus" -- usually you only see him playing half-asleep yuppies. This film proves he also has great technique. It's Minnie Driver, however, who is the hypnotic focal point of the film -- her passion radiates from the screen.

finemot As a Minnie Driver fan, I couldn't believe the tawdry disaster unfolded in the telling of "Slow Burn." Produced in part by Two Drivers (Minnie and her sister, Kate), it gives the impression of two intelligent women based on self-destruction. For three generations, Minnie's forebears have been consumed with the search for her grandmother's remains, and with it, the diamonds with which she disappeared into the desert so many years ago. It has consumed all of Trina's (Driver's) life, from infancy into young womanhood. Now, only Trina and her older mentor (and Mom's former lover) are left. Trina has promised that this will be her final year of searching. After this season, she'll throw in the towel. Two bumbling escaped convicts, one a bit dim (but basically of good heart) - the other given to apparant glimpses of insight between fits of pique, literally stagger upon what three generations of desert veterans have been unable to find. One of the cons is played by James Spader, and I swear I didn't recognize him. (As Martha Stuart might say [as far as a career move is concerned], "This is a good thing." His agent would agree. In short, there are disabled trucks with runaway tendencies. Said trucks seem to appear meaningfully late in the movie, almost cluttering the set ... despite their mechanical devastations. With trucks like these, "OK! I'll take the kids!" There's a sterility in interpersonal relationships that makes evem Driver's character appear to be a cardboard cut out. Is this love in bloom, or heatstroke. There's even a touch of 'Marathon Man" here, for those with expensive "tastes." The premise should have been developed into a taut thriller. However, neither the viewer seeking justice nor the sophisticate in search of irony comes away satisfied. There's a lovely and colorful little bird to win your heart; but this is not the bird director Chrisyian Ford delivers to paying audiences. "Is it safe?" to see "Slow Burn?" Only if it's free and you're desperate for seeing Minnie Driver on the big screen.