MovieChat Forums > Parlor (2015) Discussion > Robert LaSardo good, everything else? Ba...

Robert LaSardo good, everything else? Bad.


First and foremost this film feels a LOT like Hostel. Group of kids visit a strange, creepy European country and end up getting mutilated. The film is pretty senseless and doesn't go anywhere. The clumsy attempt at a back story (which is awkwardly crowbarred in with 15 minutes left) is ridiculous.

By far the worst aspect of it though are the kids. Absolutely some of the worst acting I have ever seen, and I mean ALL of them. They weren't helped by a poor script, but my GOD, they were terrible.

It's not all bad, Robert LaSardo plays his character very well, quiet, softly spoken yet menacing. I enjoyed his performance and to be fair the gore was decent.

All in all, a completely forgettable 90 minutes and some abysmal acting.

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The script could have been so much better instead of making it a very bad Hostel knockoff.

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I'm usually cool with acting in horror movies, no matter how poor and amateurish because I tend to focus more on story and ideas. However, this is one of the first times the acting really took away from the experience. If it had been just one actor/actress sounding awkward it could've been forgiveable, but the entire cast!?

Like OP said, LaSardo is the only one sounding like he belongs in a movie.

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Everything I have seen Robert LaSardo do is top-notch. The movies and TV shows may stink, but you can always tell that LaSardo gives his all. One of the better character actors working today. They should do a Latino EXPENDABLES with LaSardo and Danny Trejo as the leaders. I know LaSardo is not Latino, but he has played many and very well I may add. I give ANARCHY PARLOR a C+. Take LaSardo out of it and it would have gotten a D.

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I totally agree-I love watching Robert LaSardo.

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This is *exactly* what I came away from this movie thinking as well. Glad to see there are other like-minded viewers out there. Robert LaSardo, as others mentioned, is usually always a convincing actor and gives it 100% in everything in which I've seen him. He's probably the only reason I made it through this film honestly. Him and the glut of naked women and boobs which every horror film seems the need to add (hey, I'm not complaining!).

The rest of this movie was just an utter mess though. Almost all the other actors were atrocious, the script was incredibly weak and silly (obviously hoping to mimic "Hostel" without any of the cleverness or charm). Even the choice of the director to focus on certain things was ridiculous. For example, showing the people so scared or in pain they pissed themselves and then focus on the pee streaming down the table. Not once, not twice, but *three* times they did this! The multiple "vagina" kicks. The big ham-fisted reveal of the handsome, rich friend being the descendant of the Cuzan(?) family, looking for his own skin-portrait on the canvas of his douchebag friend was one of the silliest endings I could have imagined.

There were so many parts of the script that were just laughable: the British slag with big, awesome tits roughing it as an exotic dancer in Lithuania (what? there are none of these clubs in England??), the mixed-gender gang of teenage street hoodlums just hanging around doing *beep* the Master dressing up as "Keyser Soze" in his black hat and trenchcoat and shooting the cute British girl through the eye. And don't get me started on her boyfriend... the biggest pussy I've ever seen in a movie yet lucky enough to get a threesome with a random Lithuanian girl (who all look like models apparently). He gets knocked senseless by Uta and then does nothing for the rest of the film! Such a poor film.

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Lasardo was Good? For sitting stock-still and WHISPERING all of his dialogue? No.

Lesardo is excellent at what he does and has always done - small and even Bit-Parts (SEE: NYPD Blue, et al - he carries some of those scenes with heavyweights) - but small, Bit-part is his Sweet-Spot and his Limit (and he knows it - he could get bigger roles; he knows they would harm his career and ability to get high-paying, sweet Bit Parts in big movies ever again). He is not good as anything bigger and only seems that way because the entire rest of the Cast is so seriously awful-stinking-every Cliche' in the book about beginners who do not know *beep* but think they do (and cannot even scream convincingly).

No, it's when everyone touts Lesardo as The Heavyweight, Veteran Actor, or some "Institution of Method-Acting" we know all other cast members seem to be reading directly from Cue-Cards for the first time.

Lesardo is excellent in NYPD Blue and his 100 other bit-parts; he actually has become incredibly recognizable and that is well-deserved, but not for this "Dead man who Whispers-Method Acting..."

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