Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Spoonixel Amateur movie with Big budget

Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

lazarillo Peter Coyote plays a famous writer of erotic literature who also teaches college classes on Nathaniel Hawthorne. He keeps having affairs with his nubile co-ed students, not because he's a letch, but because they keep throwing themselves at him like they were in heat. After a sex scandal, he moves to a new college where he is immediately pursued by the dean's daughter (the always enjoyable Fairuza Baulk). He also gets involved with a sexy female convict (Nastassja Kinski), who may or may not have killed the wife of her ex-lover (Udo Kier), after he inadvertently reads some letters she sends to the former resident of his new apartment. There is some ridiculous Rube Goldberg-type plotting involving a fellow professor/erstwhile computer hacker (Jeremy Piven) and the convict's sexy white-trash sister (Layla Roberts). Eventually, the female convict escapes and ends up hiding out in the professor's apartment.This movie is way more ambitious than your average "erotic thriller", but that doesn't mean it quite works. It begins promisingly with a naked co-ed sitting on the professor's desk reading erotic passages from his own novel to him. But after that there is pretty much no sex or nudity at all, a huge mistake for this kind of film. It's totally understandable that Nastassja Kinki may have grown weary of being sexually exploited. (She wasn't yet 40 at the time but had already been doing it for 25 years). But this probably wasn't the best role to take then. Still, Kinski is a talented actress and her entire appeal is not based on her getting naked. That's also never been the appeal of cult actress Fairuza Baulk. It's inexcusable though to cast a "Playboy Playmate"/"Baywatch" babe like Layla Roberts in a movie and have her keep her clothes on. Those girls were never known for their acting. (It's kind of like calling a plumber, paying him, and then telling him to forget about the clogged-up sink, you need help with your taxes).Of course, both the sister and the more interesting Piven character are completely superfluous to the plot to begin with, and Udo Kier is similarly wasted in a brief, throwaway role. That's the other main problem with the movie--it has way too many loose narrative strands. There is a potentially interesting subplot where the professor is pressured by the administration to give an undeserved grade to a spoiled, barely black female student for purely "PC" reasons, but they really should have either developed this subplot or dropped it altogether. And then there's a scene where they visit a former tenant (Pauly Shore) who now lives in a hothouse with a bunch of snakes. I'm sorry, but there is NEVER a good reason to put Pauly Shore in a movie (there's no such thing as NON-gratuitous Pauly Shore). This should have definitely met the editing-room floor. By this time, the movie has become absurdist black comedy, but you should probably realize a movie is absurdist, black comedy well before it's three-quarters of the way over.I can give this movie some points for creativity and ambition (and a pretty impressive cast), but it's definitely not a success overall.

Rogue-32 It's a shame, really, that the script of this film had more holes than you could shake a stick at (mixed metaphor intentional), because Kinski and Coyote - both supremely talented performers who are capable of great subtlety and nuance - have wonderful chemistry together, and the always-provocative Fairuza Balk didn't hurt the mix either. Jeremy Piven would have been great here too, if his character (and all the other supporting characters) hadn't been written as a plot device. As for the main proceedings, the writers just didn't know how to create the suitable guilty-or-innocent tension for Kinski's character -- instead they gave us confusion, contradiction and, by the finale, downright let's-hope-the-viewers-don't-notice claptrap.

Carl S Lau It is easy to criticize this movie and others have already pointed out its deficiencies. The movie is available on DVD and has director's commentary in which is revealed that the movie was shot in 21 days on a minimal budget. Or as the commentary says: this commentary details how one goes about making a movie under considerable time and budgetary restraints. The performances by the actors are first rate. The script is filled with many logical flaws and oversights that are exacerbated by the ending of the movie. Meaning, that one can then work backwards and see the major holes in the script because the ending seems to sabotage the entire theme of the movie. Still it is more than watchable because of what is up on the screen. Nastassja is Nastassja and it is almost always rewarding to watch her on the screen, if she has sufficient material to work her magic. There is an underlying tension throughout the movie in which one wonders if Lydia Davis, the Nastassja Kinski character, is manipulating the academic and overmatched Peter Coyote character. You will have to watch the movie and see for yourself.

George Parker In "Red Letters", Coyote is at the vortex of as a college professor who writes to a female prison inmate and gets more than he bargained for. There are two reasons to watch this flick...Kinski is one and Piven the other although it's difficult for their sparks to shine in such a complete directorial disaster. Everything is wrong with "Red Letters"...convoluted, lousy screenplay, camera, editing, and most of all acting which is subpar for Coyote, etc. Battersby has taken a story with potential and turned it into a seriously flawed and amateurish flick not worth the time.