Product Description

Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: UN
Release Date: 12-AUG-2008
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37705 in DVD
• Brand: BINDER,MIKE
• Released on: 2008-08-12
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 91 minutes

Amazon.com
Mike Binder wrote, directed, and stars in this smart comedy set in corporate London. Akin to television series The Office, and many other feature length comedies about vicious takeovers, bureaucracy, and foul business practice like 9 to 5, The Search for John Gissing also stars Alan Rickman as Gissing, a British fellow out to foil Matthew Barnes, the fumbling Woody Allen-type character portrayed by Binder. This revenge tale opens with Gissing inviting Barnes and his wife, Linda (Janeane Garofalo), to London to sign a merger with a German company. From the second Matthew and Linda step off the plane, plans fall through, income disappears, and Gissing steadily botches Barnes' attempts to succeed in this new environment. Clever characters, like Francois Fuller (Allan Corduner), the French CEO whose accent confounds Matthew with his New York dialect, and Sister Mary (Sonya Walger), the sexy nun, compliment the Barnes' and their archenemy, Gissing. Since the story is about a rather straightforward competition between the two men, one can focus on the sharp-witted script and the ways Rickman, Binder, and Garofalo infuse their characters with realistic quirks and neuroses. Garofalo transforms Linda into an understanding, but opinionated, wife. Binder's underdog persona slowly dissolves to reveal a strong, intelligent "soldier" in his businessman's "war." Rickman's Gissing is a suave, yet somehow dorky villain whose ill intentions are ultimately rooted in a fear of losing power. As each of the three main characters come to clarify priorities in their personal lives, they begin to see that they are not so opposite after all. --Trinie Dalton

Customer Reviews

Rickman's Comic Genius
I paid an arm and a leg to get this movie to add to my Rickman collection before it was widely available, and it was worth it. Alan Rickman has described himself an instrument. He is most known for "playing that instrument" as a heavy, and even as a romatic lead. He does each brilliantly. But in Gissing, he proves that he also has perfect comic timing. The movie is a little choppy in its transition editing, perhaps because someone thought this was creative. It is not. However Alan Rickman's performance is incredible. If you are a Rickman fan, you absolutely must own this. If your don't know much about him (where HAVE you been?), you will be a fan when you see this.

Total disappointment
I too got this film to add to my growing collection of Alan Rickman films and was sadly disappointed. I found Mike Binder to be annoying and ridiculous beyond measure and the absolute implausibility of the storyline caused me to roll my eyes so many times I had a headache by the end of the movie! The whole nun thing was awful. And as has been said before in other reviews here, the likes of Janeane Garofalo and Juliet Stevenson are wasted.

Oddly enough, despite my negative impression of the film as a whole, I have a great desire to see Alan Rickman do more comedy. I adore him in his dramatic roles but he has a gift for symphonic sarcasm that keeps me wanting more. Who knows, however, why he chose this project. I sincerely hope some smartly written comedies (let me stress this again, this was not smartly or even well written) come his way.

Disappointing, boring, and a chore to sit through...
This film is a very disappointing outing. It's a rather contrived, badly plotted film about a corporate manager who is transferred to London to oversee a merger, and gets the shaft by the title character. While there are a few funny passages in the film, there are a lot of very dull stretches. Most of the dialogue is expository, resulting in a film with absolutely no narrative flow. It plods from one setpiece to another, and ends up being an absolute chore to finish. Much of the slapstick quality of it feels forced, and it feels like a sitcom where logic and character development go straight out the window. The character's motivation make little to no sense at all. It's one of the most paper thin scripts I've ever seen in a movie.

There are some good things about it. It has an excellent cast. Alan Rickman is good as usual, and Janeane Garofalo is very good here, despite her character being underwritten. It's nice to see her play a relatively normal person here instead of the dumpy romantic lead or the sarcastic chick. Her character here has some sarcastic dialogue, but there's some tenderness there as well, a side she rarely shows in her work. Mike Binder wrote, directed, and stars in the film, and has good screen presence and good chemistry with Garofalo. His writing, however, is very poor and the flashy direction is annoying. The flashy direction seems to be compensating for the fact that the source material is so flimsy to being with. Juliet Stevenson, Allan Courdiner, and Nigel Terry (all excellent actors) are wasted in roles that end up being caricatures, and there's a silly plot involving a fake nun. The film never got a release stateside, and only recently got released to DVD. It's easy to see why.