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Lake Placid
1999, Rated R
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Rating: 3 Stars Rating: 3 Stars Rating: 3 Stars Rating: 3 Stars Rating: 3 Stars

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Having seen Deep Blue Sea, I wasn't sure that there was a whole lot of room in the "Big Animal Disaster Movie" genre for another stupidly entertaining film. I was wrong.

After a mysterious underwater attack, Sheriff Hank Keogh (Brendan Gleeson) and Marine and Wildlife agent Jack Wells (Bill Pullman) get out of their pickups and start trying to unravel what kind of animal, living in their part of Maine, could possibly have killed a scuba diver and severed his body in half. The answer, of course, is that of a 30 foot Asian crocodile. Enter Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda), a scientist from New York and Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt) a crocodile loving, multi-millionaire head case and you've got some entertainment. Written by David E. Kelley Lake Placid is deceptively humorous, with the dialogue interchanges between Platt and Gleeson and Pullman and Fonda genuinely amusing. Be forewarned, Lake Placid is a stupid movie, but Kelley's script and Platt's smooth delivery make this a lot more fun than the box cover would suggest.

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