MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

robertguttman From the title one might suppose that this is a horror movie that has something to do with snakes. It isn't. It is actually a very droll road movie about a search for the stashed proceeds of a crime committed some years earlier. In that sense, it may be compared with "It's a Mad, Mad World". However, while that earlier film represents an homage to the comedy style of the past, "Slither" is more of a preview of the comedy style of the future. In "Slither" the characters and more realistic, the comedy is less obvious, and the entire story seems to delight in going into directions that one would not necessarily expect. In fact, "Slither" seems like a prequel to the sort of movies made by the Coen Brothers such as "The Big Labowski", "Fargo" and "Oh Brother, Where art Thou?".James Can plays a small-time criminal who, along with another guy, has just been released from prison along. When his companion invites him home for a beer to celebrate their freedom he is suddenly shot through the window. The dying ex-con imparts to Caan instructions to recover the loot from his crime, setting in motion a chain of strange encounters and events, not the least of which involves a road trip in a car towing a house trailer. One can only presume that the title "Slither" was derived from the violent motions of the trailer during the course of the inevitable cross-country chase. On the occasion when the musical "Goodbye Mr. Chips" was presented in a command performance to Queen Elizabeth, Sally Kellerman reputedly said remarked that Her Majesty would probably have found "Slither" more entertaining. She was probably right.

JasparLamarCrabb Howard Zieff's wonderfully absurd directorial debut casts James Caan as a recent parolee pursuing some stolen loot and running into one kook after another. From a script by W.D. Richter, the film is a series of vignettes, one more ridiculous than the last. It's all played at such a high level of insanity, it's impossible to dislike it. Caan is exceptional, befuddled beyond belief by the likes of Sally Kellerman, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield and Louise Lasser. Each one of them is bizarrely idiosyncratic: Kellerman is hopped up on goof-balls and runs roughshod over Caan with each interaction; Boyle is so positive and upbeat about everything it's easy to forget what a sleaze he's playing; Lasser, as Boyle's insanely supportive wife, is hysterical. One of the great 70s road movies, now residing in the "where-is-it-now?" file. The cinematography is by the great László Kovács. Alex Rocco, Richard B. Shull are in it too. In her 147th film, 74 year-old Virginia Sale plays a very wry bingo caller.

Skragg I usually either don't like, or hate, action comedies - though Slither isn't one entirely. But, as far as it IS an action one, it's the best one ever made, and (to me) about the most underrated comedy of ANY category. Most comedies or dramas about cops and robbers (or about criminals, period) promise to be about the CHARACTERS more than anything, but this one keeps that promise completely. I do have one complaint about the Sally Kellerman character, and that's that, in most of the film, she was a sort of WOULD-BE maniacal character, and that one scene of her actually holding up a diner spoils that in a way. But at least that scene gave James Caan the chance to do what he did best in the movie, which was acting horrifed or disgusted by everything that happened around him. Somehow, this doesn't wear thin anywhere in the movie, especially in his scenes with Kellerman. I usually don't like crude dialogue when it's there just for the sake of it, but the laundromat scene, where she grosses him out with her talk, is done just right, and that's why it's funny. I have what is probably a real minority opinion about the film version of MASH, and that's that it works EXCEPT for the "Burns and Houlihan" scenes, which (to me) were a real waste of both her and Duvall (including that hugely famous scene). All I can say is that anyone wanting to see Sally Kellerman in a FUNNY role should see Slither instead. The same is true of Peter Boyle and Louise Lasser, and all the character actors in smaller parts, all the way to the ones in the bingo hall scene. I don't know why most other comedies of this category can't at least APPROACH this one.

moonspinner55 I saw "Slither" when it was first released to theaters in 1973 (it played as a second-bill to "Uptown Saturday Night"--now there's a combination!). I knew nothing about this picture, nobody seemed to know where it came from, yet by the finish I couldn't wait to see it again. Today, it is as fresh and darkly comic as a Coen Brothers movie. James Caan (at his best) plays low-keyed, amiable, freshly-sprung ex-con who, right off the train, gets involved with a series of lunatics. They involve him in a scheme to retrieve some embezzled loot, and one by one start taxing Caan's patience. Sally Kellerman is terrific as a sexy neurotic; she's very flaky and funny giving her insights on situations which stops everyone in their tracks. Peter Boyle and Louise Lasser are a hoot as a suburban couple who get mixed up in the mayhem, leading to a riotous car chase involving a motor home and two vans. If the conclusion doesn't exactly deliver on the early promise, that's OK because "Slither" is totally unconventional (even its title is obscure!). *** from ****