The Caveman's Valentine

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The Caveman's Valentine

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The Caveman's Valentine

Ann Magnuson, Anthony Michael Hall, Aunjanue Ellis, Colm Feore, Joris Jarsky, Kate McNeil, Leonard Thomas, Peter MacNeill, Richard Fitzpatrick, Rodney Eastman, Samuel L. Jackson, Tamara Tunie

Samuel L. Jackson gives a virtuoso performance in this intensely visual suspense film. Jackson stars as Romulus Ledbetter, a brilliant musician whose mental demons have driven him onto the streets. Wh...( read more  read more... )en Ledbetter finds a murdered man outside the cave he calls home one morning, he is compelled to find the real killer. While interesting enough to hold the viewer's attention, the mystery of The Caveman's Valentine is a distant third to Jackson's performance and the film's sumptuous visuals. The film is gorgeously shot, and lights and abstract images are effectively used to show Romulus's beautiful but tormented inner world. While the plot does take a silly leap of logic or two, Romulus's illness and the strain it puts on his family are sensitively and realistically handled. His all-too-real run-ins with his policewoman daughter are nicely contrasted with his visions of his ex-wife, who serves as a combination of Greek chorus and muse. If one is willing to suspend a little disbelief here and there, this picture is well worth a look. --Ali Davis

Id: 10898183

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The Caveman's Valentine Recent Reviews
  • DrZeek
    September 10, 2009
    DrZeek
    Romulus Ledbetter: Sheila, what are you doing here?
    Sheila: Watching you make a fool of yourself. What are YOU doing here?
    Romulus Ledbetter: I have to prove Leppenraub is guilty.
    Sheila: Prove to who?
    Romulus Ledbetter: To the world. To... to Lulu.
    Sheila: Lulu needs a...( read more) father, not some psycho Sherlock Holmes.

    A mystery featuring Samuel L. Jackson as a deadlocked, delusional, homeless man. The plot of the film is structured like a film noir, which means I get to use the phrase: Delusional Noir. The story is okay, but Jackson gives a fine performance.

    Bob: What do you play?
    Romulus Ledbetter: My skull.

    Jackson stars as Romulus Ledbetter, a brilliant musician who is currently delusional. Living in a cave in Central Park, believing a man on the top the Chrysler Building is plotting against him. Romulus doesn't have it easy. Things are made worse once Romulus discovers a frozen body in his tree, outside his cave one morning. While the police, which includes his daughter, Lulu, pass the body off as an unfortunate homeless victim of weather, Romulus suspects foul play and some interesting connections get him access to the art/photography scene, where he can do some investigating of his own. And if Romulus can just keep it together long enough, he may stumble upon what actually happened.

    The character of Romulus is the most important factor in this film. Jackson has to appropriately balance the antics of a delusional person, making him both sympathetic and believable to an extent. While Jackson is completely solid in the role, I would have liked it a little more if there was the possibility that Romulus could be wrong about the whole thing.

    The story of the film is interesting, but it drags a bit and the overall arc isn't entirely original. However, with such a peculiar lead role, it does stay fresh enough.

    Romulus Ledbetter: I have flocks of angels in my head and that'll beat you down with their wings!
  • 76Majikat
    April 23, 2009
    76Majikat
    I very much like the idea of this film, it plays on a different perspective and shows graphically the thoughts of SLJ's character through the way he sees it. I don?t, however, think the storyline was adequate enough to suit the plot.

    SLJ acted ok at times and at others perh...( read more)aps a little over the top.

    Nothing special and a bit of an anti climax.
  • Showrogan
    June 8, 2008
    Showrogan
    Well let's see...Romulus is mentally ill, a troglodyte in a New York City park. He's also a gifted composer and the father of a city cop. On Valentine's Day, a young man freezes in a tree near his cave. The police determine it's the accidental death of someone behaving bizarrely,...( read more) but Romulus believes a friend of the dead youth who says that noted avant-garde photographer, David Leppenraub, murdered him. Romulus, urged on by hallucinations of his wife as a young woman, resolves to catch the killer and manages to be invited to Leppenraub's farm to play a new composition...the imagery,...portic, and Samuel's performance spot on as always...and the ending was great...
  • FangsFirst
    February 25, 2008
    FangsFirst
    I don't remember why I first watched this movie, perhaps I saw imagery from it somewhere and thought, "Hey! Samuel L. Jackson! Can't be TOO bad!"

    Mr. Jackson plays one Romulus "The Caveman" Ledbetter, occupant of a "rocky enclosure" in Innwood Park, New York, father of Lulu (Anj...( read more)anue--ouch, phonetic spelling of French?--Ellis) and ex(?)-husband of Sheila (Tamara Tunie). The first thing we see is inside his head, where his Juilliard-trained fingers still have a piano to occupy themselves with, playing to the accompaniment of the "moth-seraphs" that also occupy his mind. Rom occupies this cave and is referred to as "Caveman" because he is a paranoid schizophrenic. He finds outside his cave on Valentine's Day, the body of model Scotty Gates (Sean MacMahon), high in a tree. He reports this to his daughter Lulu, and we find she is in fact a police officer. Known for his rants about "Cornelius Gould Stuyvesant," Rom believes the man occupies the Chrysler Building and sends out "Y" and "Z" Rays to control the populace and deny them their freedom of mind. As such, Lulu is reluctant to believe him, but eventually does come to find the body is present as he has claimed, and so an investigation begins into his death, with Rom strongly suspecting photographer David Leppenraub (Colm Feore) is behind the crime.

    The strongest element by far is the imagery associated with Romulus' mind, the forceful editing and performance of the athletes portraying the "moth-seraphs" is unbelievably striking and primal, as they represent something of the forces of justice and vengeance in the mind of Ledbetter. The rest of the plot is not overly engaging, and George Dawes Green's screenplay (based on his own book) is a bit clumsy, with Romulus seeming too coherent at too many of the right times, or a little too "crazy" to be realistically crazy, and characters either accepting or rejecting him with equal measures of imbalanced and "convenient" reality or fiction. Bob (Anthony Michael Hall) and Betty (Kate McNeil) are Romulus' idea of the upper class, and they take Romulus in, surprised by the training he possesses musically and enthralled by it, sometimes seeming respectful of his paranoia, other times inappropriately disturbed by it. Jackson's performance, and most of them in the film, are quite good, with our ability to sympathize with this crazed man intact, yet a distance maintained with a believably threatening, uncomfortable level of disconnection from reality never being too far from us. His eventual affair with Moira Leppenraub (Ann Magnuson) is really uncomfortable, seeming grossly out of place and strange, as if she is either taking advantage of him or is not aware of his madness--though this feeling is of course dampened by a script that can't seem to make up its mind just how far gone he is from reality.

    In the end, the general reviews around are essentially correct--the film is well put together and creative, but its reach exceeds its grasp, and it stumbles a fair bit of the time. While it's fascinating to have a main character so removed from our understanding, it also makes it difficult for us to appreciate his approach, and terribly difficult to believe his abilities as a detective, as if he is conveniently made not crazy at the appropriate points to let the mystery be solved. A schizophrenic detective is simply not plausible as filmed.
  • vierasesine
    August 13, 2007
    vierasesine
    Quite curious, but is clearly missing something.
  • whispersofecstacy
    December 1, 2009
    whispersofecstacy
    One weird movie. Sometimes hard to follow...........
  • psyclock7
    September 17, 2009
    psyclock7
    Now this was a movie from out of left field..."
  • AusChic
    July 4, 2009
    AusChic
    A little wierd, but I enjoyed it and thought there was great acting and if your a fan of Jackson, you would love it.
  • helwigs
    June 22, 2009
    helwigs
    It is a little strange and a bit different from something most people would normally watch, but it was good.
  • sportboy
    March 26, 2009
    sportboy
    This film was very good and I enjoyed it.

    The plot was very interesting they could of should more action in it though because the UK title of this was sign of the killer so they could of showed more killing happening in this film but still this film was very interesting.

    Th...( read more)e acting was very good in this Samuel L Jackson may of shouted a bit too much in parts but the acting was still good it could be improved in parts though same with the plot really even though the plot and acting was good it can still be improved.

    Overall this film is worth watching and buying because this film was very good but this film can still be improved in parts.
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