Makes you wish you'd stayed at home with a book -- preferably one of Larry Brown's.
Comment
10/16/03
Big Bad Love (2002)
41
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:58
Fresh:24
Rotten:34
Average Rating:5.4/10
Consensus: A boozy depiction of a struggling writer, Big Bad Love is too messy and self-indulgent.
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: BIG BAD LOVE brings to life the characters that populate Mississippi writer Larry Brown's short story collection of the same name. Leon Barlow (Arliss Howard) is a writer with a compulsion to drink... [More]
Starring: Arliss Howard, Debra Winger, Rosanna Arquette, Paul Le Mat
Director: Arliss Howard
Reviews for Big Bad Love
The very definition of what critics have come to term an “ambitious failure.”
03/22/03
Its pleasures are ... sharp and not to everyone’s taste
07/26/02
It's the film's languid, woozy feel that draws you in and keeps you there, stuck like a moth in a killing jar redolent of Old Grandad.
04/21/02
If we had more of Debra then I'd be cool with it, but her husband/co-star /writer goes on and on and on.
03/15/02
Click to read the article
03/24/02
A chaotic panorama that's too busy flying a lot of metaphoric flags.
01/10/02
It all comes down to whether you can tolerate Leon Barlow. I can't.
03/15/02
Top CriticThough you couldn't call Love a complete success, it's packed with talent and intelligence, wayward poetry and bluesy longing.
07/20/02
The movie's best asset is Howard's filmmaking.
09/26/02
In any case, I would recommend Big Bad Love only to Winger fans who have missed her since 1995's Forget Paris. But even then, I'd recommend waiting for DVD and just skipping straight to her scenes.
03/29/02
A rough, uneven but admirably imaginative film.
05/03/02
Click to read the article
08/09/02
Click to read the article
07/26/02
While Howard's appreciation of Brown and his writing is clearly well-meaning and sincere, the movie would be impossible to sit through were it not for the supporting cast.
04/26/02
... grounded by honest, expressive performances from Howard and Winger, who achieve a tempestuous chemistry. It also makes you want to pop open a cold one.
02/22/02
Click to read the article
07/21/02
This ambitious drama about a Vietnam vet trying to create fiction out of his troubled life and former marriage (to Debra Winger) is messy, rambling, and overlong.
04/12/06
In the end, this is a story about a hard-to-know guy who loves his typewriter most of all. Everything else is just dust-jacket photography.
02/21/02
Click to read the article
09/18/02
What’s Hot On RT
Other News
Fresh Links
Featured
RT on YouTube 
Subscribe to RT's YouTube channel and don't miss a second of our cracking video content.
RT on Twitter
Follow Rotten Tomatoes and join us as we tweet about the week's releases.
IGN RSS Feeds