Simon Sez (1999)

Director:

Kevin Elders

Writers:

Moshe Diamant (story) &
Rudy Cohen (story) ...

Release Date:

29 October 1999 (Estonia)

Genre:

Action | Comedy

Tagline:

It Ain't Over Til ... (Simon Sez)

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Intentionally Misspelled Title | Agent | Monk | Motorcycle | Independent Film

Cast

Dennis Rodman	...	Simon
Dane Cook	...	Nick Miranda
John Pinette	...	Micro
Ricky Harris	...	Macro
Filip Nikolic	...	Michael Gabrielli (as Filip Nikolitch)
Natalia Cigliuti	...	Claire Fence
Emma Wiklund	...	The Dancer (as Emma Sjoberg)
Jérôme Pradon	...	Ashton
Xin Xin Xiong	...	Xin Xin (Bodyguard)
Henry Courseaux	...	Bernard Gabrielli
Igor De Savitch	...	Colonel Jacques Telore
Clayton Day	...	William Fence
Jean-Michel Dagory	...	Frenais
Pierre Madengar	...	Etiophian Vendor
Kevin Elders	...	British Reporter / Cartoon Voice

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for violence and sexuality.

Runtime:

85 min | Argentina:90 min

Country:

USA | Germany | Belgium

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Philippines:PG-13 | Iceland:12 | Argentina:13 | Germany:16 | Mexico:B | Peru:14 | Sweden:15 | UK:12 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Cagnes-sur-Mer, Alpes-Maritimes, France

Company:

Global Entertainment Productions GmbH & Company Medien KG

Goofs:

Simon shoves a bad guy (wearing a red jacket) out an office window. The guy goes out backward. The next shot, from above, shows a dummy falling face-first. The next shot shows the stuntman falling backward again, obviously on a safety wire.

Quotes:

Ashton: Guess what we're going to blow up first!
Simon: Your ego?
Ashton: No, but nice try, sailor! The Eiffel Tower!
Simon: Why?
Ashton: Because it's big and it's beautiful and I'm tired of looking at it!

Movie Connections:

References Jurassic Park (1993)

Soundtrack:

Get Down

Maybe 'Double Team' wasn't that bad in the end...

Seeing a movie like "Simon Sez" is like going to the circus as a kid. For one and a half long hours you rub your eyes, not quite believing what you're seeing. It's amazing somehow, but you never quite believe it. Maybe that's not the best comparison, but can you tell me an event which makes you as speechless as such a movie?

To call it a movie seems to be wrong anyway. It's a 90-minutes crazy, absolute over-the-top Rodman-"thing" with no sense at all.

Usually I start with the story, but how could I do so with the total lack of one here? It pretends to be about some villain getting some kind of disc for some kind of weapon and to say this is more than you get from the film. Rodman plays a agent for Interpol it is said, although I'm not quite sure these are Interpol's working methods. Let's get this straight. Rodman is an agent in a french town with two monks as companions. They all live in a cellar under a church and have more crime to fight than the CIA in the whole US. Their gadgets include a CGI-fly, which can be directed in any direction and delivers an excellent view, a super-motorcycle which can drive up walls and ceilings and a lot of weapons.

The two monks are obviously insane, as they sing and dance and laugh all the time very madly. One is fat, the other black. Your turn to make something of this.

Rodman's other companion is another lunatic named Nick. He appears suddenly and stays without reason or explanation. Even more unreasonable is that Rodman lets him stay. Looking at this guy talking and 'acting' (sorry, but I got no other word for it), makes you wonder if there was a director who actually filmed him. In his first 10 minutes of screen time he impersonates three animals so unconvincingly and hilariously, that it's hard enough for itself. But seeing him 'doing the raptor' for about 30 seconds is just painful.

There is also a woman which half of the movie fights against Rodman and the rest fights and sleeps with him at the same time. Where she comes from and who she remains a mystery.

We also have a villain, so mad, it would be an understatement to call him a caricature. He always smiles, makes little jokes only he laughs about and gets scared the first time when his car is blocked by a sheep's herd. And he has maybe the first computer ever, which has not only a little animation looking like him, but this one can also talk for itself and change visually in order of the things happening around it. When the villain gets electrocuted, the animation gets to. Amazing.

Which leaves us with a bunch of actors who laugh, dance and make crazy noises all the time, no story and the most unrealistic action sequences since Moses went through the Red Sea. Rodman lets himself fall down a long column, while he holds himself onto it with his legs, because he needs his arms for shooting. As I said, he also drives with his motorcycle up a wall and along the ceiling in a tunnel. And I can't forget the most hilarious sex-scene ever filmed, involving Rodman and his girlfriend/enemy, a strobo-light and a see-through bed.

Movies like this leave me kind of exhausted. I'm a fan of bad movies, but bad movies are only enjoyable if they take themselves seriously. "Simon Sez" tries to be both a comedy and an action-flick and fails desperately at both. The classic bad movie "Double Team" was funny because van Damme was so damn serious all the time (not to mention Mickey Rourke). Rodman playing crazy was just an addition to the serious stuff and made this film perfectly bad. But here everybody just plays crazy. It's "Batman & Robin" mixed with "Double Team" on drugs. And when you succeed in watching the movie in full length without running away, you can be sure to feel as crazy as the whole crew must have felt to make this film. So, in a way you're get in contact with the filmmaker's emotions. There are just aren't enough emotional movies out there. Here's a new one. Who wants to cry anyway when you just as well can become crazy?