Choke

Choke
Directed: Clark Gregg
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly MacDonald, Brian William Henke
Trailer

Synopsis: Based on a Chuck Palahniuk novel, a sex-addict who works at a Colonial theme park fakes choking in restaurants so people can save him.

I love the book. It is twisted and very wrong. It is also shocking the first time you read it. I reread the book just before the movie came out and it wasn’t as shocking, but was still twisted and funny. While the movie seems to follow the book very closely, it doesn’t seem to capture the spirit of it. It is the same feeling I had after watching the first two Harry Potter movies. They stuck to the story very well, but they just weren’t as much fun as the books. Yes, I did just compare this movie to Harry Potter. The Harry Potter movies later on (starting with the third) captured the spirit and were as much fun as reading the books, but they were also worth seeing without having to say the books were better. They were both different experiences of the same story. Here, there isn’t much experience with just the movie. Everything I love about it can be found in the book. I am curious if anyone that hadn’t read the book would find it funnier than I did. I laughed out loud while reading the book, but only chuckled a couple times during the movie. It could have been that I knew what was coming, but I’m not so sure.

One thing the movie has over the book is Sam Rockwell. Vincent in the book really is not sympathetic at all. It did make me laugh at every bad thing that happened to Vincent since he wasn’t really a nice guy and seemed to lack a moral compass, even if his mom was to blame.  Sam Rockwell makes Vincent somewhere sympathetic even while he is being a complete bastard. The rest of the cast was good too. I will have to say most of the fault lies with the director. I think it was a valiant effort, but needed some work. I have a feeling David Fincher (director of Fight Club) would have done a better job of it. I did discuss it with Stacy after the movie and we both decided that the next Chuck Palahniuk novel that should be made into a movie should be Invisible Monsters. It would be completely awesome. It would need a good director though.

Grade: C

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