Stephen King's Thinner [VHS] [1997]

A film about peoples actions and how a chain of events can start of with a simple accident and turn nasty.
All in all it is a top film, highly recomended by me and I will be doing so to all my other SK fan friends, and to everyone reading this, WHAT R U WATING 4 BUY IT NOW!!!!!!!!

The problem with "Thinner" is one I associate with Steve Martin's idea of cat juggling. In his comedy act Martin would talk about being a cat juggler, which, if you picture in your mind's eye, is a pretty funny idea. But then in one of his films Martin tried to show cat juggling on screen and it just did not work. The same thing applies to what Robert John Burke has to go through playing Billy Halleck in this film in going from a character who weights 300 pounds to lone who dips under the 100 pound mark. Except for a few scenes in the film Burke always looks unreal to me. This is surprising because the make-up was done by Greg Cannom, who won Oscars for his work on "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and "Mrs. Doubtfire." So if Cannom could not pull this off, then it is likely nobody could have (The video includes a featurette on "The Magic of Special Effects Make-Up"). However, this still means that the transformation that the story rests on does not work. Like cat juggling, what sounds like a great and horrifying idea, does not translate convincingly to the screen.

Part of the problem is the voice Burke affects for this role keeps dispelling the illusion. It seems to me to be something of a "fat" voice, but the key thing is that it strikes me as being even more fake that the make-up. This is too bad because the rest of the performances in the film work pretty well, especially Joe Mantegna ("Searching for Bobby Fischer") as Richie Ginelli, the mobster client who comes to Billy's aid with great relish when the lawyer puts the Curse of the White Man from Town on the gypsies in an effort to get them to launch the curse. Michael Constantine ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding") has a memorable turn as the old gypsy, Tadzu Lempke, and Kari Wuhrer ("Eight Legged Freaks") plays his fiery granddaughter Gina Lempke. The screenplay by Michael McDowell and Tom Holland sticks pretty close to the original novel by King, who makes his traditional cameo appearance in the film early on. "Thinner" was actually filmed in Maine, which is rather atypical for a Stephen King film.

Thinner is about as straightforward a plot as you will ever get from Stephen King. Billy Halleck, an obese, morally ambivalent lawyer accidentally (with some help from his unsavory wife) runs over an old gypsy woman. His friendship with the chief of police and presiding judge allows him to walk away scot-free, a fact which obviously annoys the victim’s 106-year old father. This gypsy king places a curse upon the men who killed and then covered up the death of his daughter. Billy’s curse comes down to one word, “Thinner.” He quickly finds himself losing weight, which seems to be a blessing – at first. It doesn’t take him long to figure out, though, that he is dropping two to four pounds a day regardless of how much food he throws down his throat. When he sees the effect of the gypsy curse on his two friends, reality hits him like a great big frying pan. As his fear and paranoia increase exponentially, he grows distrustful of his own wife, who truly is just a little too friendly to his basically unhelpful doctor. In desperation, having failed to convince the gypsy to release his curse, Billy turns to one of his shady clients, using him to implement his own “white man’s curse” on the gypsy king and his thoroughly despicable grand-daughter. The ending of the movie differs slightly from King’s original ending, but it comes off rather well.

All in all, this is a perfectly good movie that really doesn’t even aspire to anything greater than what it is. Stephen King makes another memorable appearance as the town pharmacist, and that is pretty much the highlight of the whole film for me. If you are some kind of fanatic about movie makeup, though, maybe Thinner has a little more to offer you than it does me. Taking a character from 300 pounds to 128 pounds in a matter of several weeks is not something you just do off the cuff. Thus, the evolution of Robert John Burke’s makeup becomes almost distracting as the movie progresses. This is really beaten into your head listening to the commentary by director Tom Holland and actor Joe Mantegna. Each stage of the makeup job is addressed, and I really don’t care how many layers of latex the guy has on at any point or how that little bit of flaking and almost imperceptible sliding works and doesn’t work, etc. I don’t often listen to movie commentaries to know how they normally go, but this one seems to point out too many little problems, editing mistakes, and budget-deprived inadequacies in the film. Take my advice – don’t listen to the commentary’s litany of problems, just watch the film and try to find what little successes it provides. Again, I’m not saying this is a bad movie; when it’s over, though, you just kind of shrug your shoulders and go on as it immediately begins to fade from your memory.