Reviewed by
Christopher Armstead
Mr. Evil Oil Executive has gotten wind that the Nutty Professor across town has built an engine that doesn’t need gas and instead runs on sun power via its paint job. It’s complicated. Mr. Evil Oil Executive tells his Evil Flunky Dude who Handles Stuff to handle this situation since folks not buying gas would suck for his portfolio. Now by handling this situation the Evil Flunky Handler Dude will dispatch his Evil Men in Black to kill, burn, blow up and erase the Nutty Professor and his work from reality. If you know Evil Corporate Dudes like I know Evil Corporate dudes, sure they might kill but the first thing they are going to do is steal, so this was a problem for us right off the bat in this incredibly silly Canadian thriller ‘Reverse Angle’.
Simply by chance, super hot schlock television reporter Eve Preston (Emmanuelle Vaugier) was there to interview the Nutty Professor before the Men in Black got there to kill him, and while they took care of the Professor, now they have to take care of Eve. Next thing you know Eve is run of the road in a fiery cash and thrown into a tree, and while she has survived this incident she has unfortunately lost her memory. We should also mention that the Men in Black are the worst corporate hitmen who ever lived since they didn’t bother to check the wreckage to see if Eve or her Cameraman Al (Mark Marans) were actually dead.
Now Eve is wandering around ‘Philadelphia’ with no knowledge of who the hell she is or what she does or anything. The good thing for Eve is that she’s a celebrity so everybody knows her, even she doesn’t know herself, and that would include Self-Help Guru Dr. Harry Griggs (Anthony Lemke). Apparently Eve was supposed to meet the alleged con-man and expose him, and as such he doesn’t like Eve all that much, but considering the Men in Black have just shot at him because he was physically too close to Eve at this point and time, he’s kind of stuck helping her.
Eventually Eve starts to slowly regain her memory, remembering that she was quite the bitch in her previous life, unethical, sleeping with her married boss, brutally ambitious, snide, nasty, backstabbing… and those were her good points. But this new Eve… man, this is a woman that Harry can work with and maybe even fall for. Eve likes Harry too. In fact while Eve might not remember much about her past she does remember that she’s a total slut, giving Harry that poo almost instantly, at least until those pesky Men in Black show up ruining the love thing in mid-progress. Assholes. Note that Harry has done more than enough to deserve some poo but Eve should at least have the man buy her dinner or something.
Still, Eve has no idea why these men are trying to kill her since she’s the equivalent of a glorified weather girl at her TV station. What exactly did Eve discover? And will she be able to blow the lid off of this thing before the Men in Black track her down? Did we mention that the Men in Black are completely incompetent?
You are going to be hard pressed to find a sillier movie than this movie ‘Reverse Angle’. First there was the ‘fractured timeline’ since Eve would crash her car early in the movie, that being about an hour into the past, then time catches up with her with the movie informing us that this is the ‘present day’. Actually guys, even if it happened an hour ago, it’s still the ‘Present Day’. I’m just saying. Then we have to deal with our lethal Men in Black who give hitmen the world over a bad name. My favorite scene was when they parked their car in the middle of the road, jumped out and hid behind a bush to spy on somebody. Guys, even if these people couldn’t see the two large men dressed in black sporting sunglasses hiding behind a thin branch, chances are they could certainly see the extra large Jeep Liberty that you left in the middle of the street with the engine running. I’m just saying. There’s some great dialog in this flick as well. Eve and Harry are driving down the street. Eve turns to Harry and says ‘you’ve saved my life’. Harry turns to Eve and says ‘actually, it’s the other way around’. Huh? If by ‘saving your life’ Harry means that Eve has exposed him as a fraud, consistently put him in great harms way by getting him chased down, run over, shot at, eventually riddled with bullets and not give him any sex… then yeah, I can totally see where’s he coming from. We all should have our lives changed in a such a life affirming way. And why in the hell did they set this movie in ‘Philadelphia’ when it was clearly shot in Canada. Canadians have TV reporters and drive cars that use gas too you know. I’m just saying.
Still, Emmanuelle Vaugier was looking good, as per usual, and while everything surrounding the story in this movie was intensely silly and ridiculous, the actual story itself wasn’t so bad. By all means do not take that as any kind of recommendation that you run out and put that in your Netflix Cue, but I always make it a point to accentuate the positive. It’s just how I do.