Alicia I love this movie so much

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

MBunge This almost worthless piece of tripe demonstrates what happens to good actors when they're subjected to mind-numbingly bad direction. The result is a film the performers have to walk around the rest of the careers feeling embarrassed about.There is one decent thing in The Cool Surface. Teri Hatcher goes topless and, yes, they are both real and spectacular. Outside of celebrity boob gazing, the only other use this thing could have is as an example to beginning film students of how not to tell a story, handle actors, film a scene or write dialog. The students would get an "A" for best efforts at detailing every last way this film sucks.The main character of this garbage is Jarvis Scott (Robert Patrick), a novelist in Los Angeles. And when the movie doesn't make a comment or an allusion about how "Los Angeles novelist" is an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp or Nazi Zionist, you know right away you're in for a bad experience. Naming the main character Jarvis and giving him the worst bangs that any man has sported since the late Roman Empire are also good signs of how crappy this film will be.Anyway, Jarvis behaves like a bi-polar basset hound, alternating between clingy neediness and seething indifference. He becomes obsessed with the actress who lives next door, Dani Payson (Teri Hatcher), who herself behaves like a bi-polar Donald Trump with better hair and great jugs. One second she's a reasonably nice, if somewhat distant, girlfriend. The next second she's a man-hungry vamp who gets off on being dominated and is driven to succeed at any cost. Robert Patrick and Teri Hatcher spend the entire movie snapping from one emotional extreme to the other, usually for no reason and always with nothing in between. There are points where it looks like Hatcher is trying to erase her own performance from her mind while she's still giving it. There's another stretch where Patrick adopts this weird tone to his voice, like he's trying to imitate somebody you don't know.Now, Patrick and Hatcher may not be the greatest thespians in the world, but they're proved over their careers to be perfectly capable performers with some measure of screen presence. Yet, watching them in The Cool Surface, you're amazed that they ever got another job that didn't involve sexually gratifying someone with a Garden Weasel. I mean, they couldn't have done worse if the only thing writer/director/idiot Erik Anjou did was jab them with a cattle prod in between scenes.I could go on about the vapid plot where Jarvis writes a book based on his relationship with Dani, it gets made into a movie where Dani gets the lead role, she starts screwing the director and then Jarvis shows up wearing an African tribal mask…but I think I'll spare you all that inanity. I will say, in fairness, that some of the cruddiness of the story may be from writer/director/idiot Anjou's attempt to meld what was really happening with nightmares and fantasies that were only in Jarvis' head. He may have been attempting that but if he was, it was so poorly conceived and so ineptly executed that it looks much more like Anjou just didn't know his ass from his elbow.I never thought I'd have to tell you to stay away from a movie that features Teri Hatcher's bare breasts. Well…that day has come, my friends, and it's a sad day for us all.

lathe-of-heaven Well, the above viewer who blasted this film also made the statement 'I haven't seen Robert Patrick in anything else...' Uh huh..., so like have you been a captive on Mars for the last 15 years or what...??? : ) GEEZ, who the hell hasn't heard of T2??!! Anyway, sorry, just had to get that outta the way... Sure, the film has a LOT of ultra-cheeeeeezy clichéd and unnecessary sex scenes; that's a given. So, ignoring those scenes and just taking the movie as a whole as far as atmosphere, acting, suspense, etc. I felt it was quite good; YES, definitely in a low budget B-Movie kinda way, but still well done. And, YES Ms. Hatcher's role was over-the-top as another reviewer mentioned here. I think what I liked primarily was the surreal sense that the film put across quite effectively; there are some scenes where even now (after seeing the film about 3 times) I am not quite sure what is real and what isn't. ****MINOR SPOILER*** Especially the scene where she is making love to the director and Patrick appears to be in the room with them writing on a typewriter asking her enthusiastically what she's gonna do next *****END MINOR SPOILER***** Anything that pulls off a good surreal mood or plays with your mind a little like that is very entertaining to me. So, with all it's many flaws, OVERALL, I honestly feel that the film pulls off a great story with excellent suspense (without having to have people 'SAW' there own foot off, thank you very much : ) and Patrick really does a very effective job in portraying a guy RIGHT on the edge. Good little animal references too and the bit with the wolf and his reaction was a nice touch. Also too, the interesting psychological contrast between how things played out at the director's house, with the way the film ended, was intriguing because your thinking 'Where the heck is this guy really coming from...???' In other words, without getting into an actual 'Spoiler', He appeared to be 'into' what was happening at the director's house, but then at the same time how does that translate into what he does at the end? I think it's just simply that the guy was unraveling from the start, perhaps mentally dislodged from his previous girlfriend's suicide (and then THAT makes you wonder whether her suicide triggered HIS instability OR did his instability trigger her suicide...????!!!) So you see, this movie is not just simply another lousy throw-away; there is a LOT here that really makes you think. Especially if you like films along psychological lines with a touch of the surreal...

syvell This film is absolutely HOT!! The film is so full of erotic tension, even when there's 'nothing actually happening' (!). For that, the erotic appeal, I give it 5 stars, even though the story gets a bit unsatisfactory towards the end. It feels like it was originally different and some essential scenes were cut. But I can't say much more without giving too much away. I love the very ending, though! Calls for a sequel, really, which unfortunately never happened. I would have loved to see Robert Patrick in more steamy action... So, if you want to see two very good-looking people involved in loads of hot situations and talking - this is a film to get. Might be that the story is a bit confused - but who cares??? It's certainly not boring!

charlottesweb Tormented writer draws inspiration from the life of the girl-next-door for his next novel. But, as topless Teri Hatcher looks to be giving him the book his publisher has been begging for, the writer falls for her. The kind of film where anger can only be represented by a character punching a table top.