Alicia I love this movie so much

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

dhmason6155 This movie isn't for everybody, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. It probably helped that I grew up in the L.A. area, and the San Fernando valley in particular (I've been to Canoga Park, and driven down Sherman Way!). I loved the way they evoked the Southern CA surf culture, and especially the surf music, of the early 60's. I've always been a big a fan of that era. And has anyone noticed how prevalent 60's surf music still is today? You hear it constantly on TV commercials and in the media. The pre-counterculture 60's period detail in this movie was excellent: clothing, cars, houses, hairstyles etc. It's an almost overlooked time in our history and culture. (As a former valley-boy, I was amazed to see on the end credits that this was filmed in Vancouver B.C!). The real-life story here is no secret. The fun of this movie is in the journey, not the destination. I'm glad they chose to make it as an almost surreal, truth-stranger-than-fiction comedy. This is serious subject matter, but it would have been a total flop as a straight ahead drama. The thrill was in getting to know the perpetrators and in the realization that they were really just regular, likable guys (guys I might have hung out with at one time) doing incredibly stupid things and getting in deeper and deeper. Of course the glue that held the whole thing together was David Arquette. You can have fun just watching him think. I've followed him, on and off, since the Scream movies, and he just gets interestinger and interestinger. I was mesmerized watching him go from friendly to scheming to salesman to wounded in the time it took to light a cigarette. Bill Macy also added depth and dimension to the whole affair and provided a solid foundation for Arquette to stand on. For me, this is an excellent low budget gem, and a movie I never get tired of watching.

FlickersRULE Just saw this and it's not as bad as others make it out to be.Yes, Arquette is a minor weak link but otherwise this film has a lot of good things going for it - and frankly I think how the kidnappers is portrayed adds to the realism of the film - I mean you have to be either dumb or crazy to try something like this - or both.Ebert and Roeper gave it two thumbs up and I can see why - it was refreshing to see a story like this told from a lighter angle rather than the melodramatic stance it usually is.Undoubtedly those who didn't "get" the Arquette character missed the flaws in personality which Arquette did portray well... the guy has a screw loose and is as Macy says, "in waaaaay over his head".As far as the directing being a little clunky, I do have to agree, although perhaps its suits this somewhat unconventional storyline. All in all, It was enjoyable until the end, nevertheless it gets 7 stars because it was a little rough around the edges.

PersianPlaya408 Underwoods goofy story about a young man(Arquette) who convinces his friends that they should kidnap Frank Sinatra Jr. (Nicholas). The film is written ridiculously, direction is odd, dialogues are out of place and scrambled, the actors didn't do it much justice either, Arquette is annoying throughout, Ian Nicholas was nonexistent, Macy was decent, but only because hes a pretty good actor and probably just tried his best not to come out of this project with a totally embarrassing performance, he was at least tolerable. This is a stupid film in my eyes, boring at times, not entertaining, just a film that i wouldn't recommend to anybody. IMDb Rating: 5.5, my rating: 4/10

Andrew_Bassett (Only light spoilers in here)Stealing Sinatra is a half-slapstick comedy about dimwit kidnappers, dimwit victims, and a few other side-stories thrown in to eat up some time.You will see some poor performances all around in this movie. The drama is forced, and the humor makes no sense. Whether you're watching the kidnappers threaten the victim who won't shut up, or a victim's father responding to the criminal's death threat with "Care for some tea?", none of it is believable. This quite comfortably fits into the "wannabe movie" category.You will also be listening to a repetitive goofy music track throughout pretty much the entire movie. It's quite unprofessional, and adds nothing. It's really just a sad attempt at making an achingly unfunny movie seem somewhat witty.However, if you're able to look past all of this and suspend a lot of disbelief, you might be entertained by the adequate storyline.I voted 4/10.