Ralph B
Finally saw this on Kino Cult - always knew about the film, but never had a chance to watch. Prime 80's (although feels more 70s) exploitation. Interesting performance from the lead - she's mute (in the film), so she has no lines (except for a couple of written notes). Somewhat interesting soundtrack and the Halloween Party sequence has a nice off-kilter appeal. That trumpet sure does sound like a saxophone though.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
09/01/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Another grossly overrated film that lacks significant substance and character development. The main character is conveniently a mute, saving writers from the burden of creating any meaningful dialogue for nearly the entire movie. Lund couldn’t have asked for a less demanding role, having absolutely no need to remember any lines. Being a mute also conveniently makes it mostly impossible to know whether or not she has any skill as an actress whatsoever. The movie description is completely misleading as well. She mostly responds positively to random men’s advances before leading them to a location where she can murder them unseen, without really any of the men even doing a thing to justify her murdering them. They are mostly just surprised by her ambushing them. One guy she meets at a bar, she goes outside to sit with on a bench, and while he’s talking with her, she pulls out her gun and puts it to his head and pulls the trigger. That is the kind of thing that typically represents the situations in which she murders men. Most people would not consider that to be vigilante Justice, just plain old murder. If the movie had actually been true to its description, maybe it could’ve been an engaging story, but it just ends up being a movie about a mute girl who lures random innocent men into situations where she can murder them for no reason. So if pointless repetitive murder isn’t your thing (which I imagine is the case for most), there is really nothing you will find enjoyable about this movie. While not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, it certainly can compete for the top 10 or 20. And I’ve seen a lot of movies, especially thrillers, so you can imagine I’ve seen more than my fair share of bad movies. I would’ve given it 2 stars if not for its grossly unbalanced number of what are clearly fans praising a movie that can only click with the 1% of the population they belong to, yet comprising 98% of its reviews.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
05/05/23
Full Review
Wayne K
Never one to shy away from controversy, or the sleazy realities of life in New York City, Abel Ferrara dipped his toes into the rape and revenge pool with Ms. 45 in 1981, 3 years after I Spit On Your Grave made the genre, I guess, noteworthy. Unlike the Meir Zarchi film, which revelled in how drawn-out, graphic and unrelenting the rape scenes were, Ferrara pares them back, with both receiving less than a minute of screentime each, a wise decision that many exploitation filmmakers could learn a lesson from. Making the lead character, Thana, a mute means that most of the performance is giving through expressions and her inability to truly articulate what she's thinking, and Zoë Lund is fantastic in the role. It focuses more on the ramifications of the assaults and the subsequent revenge than on the assaults themselves, and despite the attention it received for its graphic violence, its far less bloody than the average slasher flicks you'll see released nowadays. There's elements which feel implausible and ill thought out, but by keeping it simple and streamlined, Ferrari is able to tell the story he wants to tell without unnecessary subplots or needless filler. Of the 3 Ferrara films I've seen so far, this one is my favourite, but in a few weeks, months or years time, that may well have changed.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
03/13/23
Full Review
steve c
This should be categorized as dark comedy as well.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
Full Review
John O
Spoilers: Zoe Lund. That's about it. But I was pretty captivated by her. So much so that she reminded me not just in looks but in attitude and atmosphere of Anya Taylor-Joy, one of the best female actors today. Zoe had that rare ethereal, almost other-worldly look and feel about her, maybe partly because she was playing a mute so had to communicate a lot with her face and such, but was like Anya. Like Taylor-Joy, she seemed pretty self-possessed, knowing and unpredictable. Zoe started as mousey but flipped the switch (mental illness) when she was raped by 2 different guys on the same day. The critique of modern city life and of patriarchal dangers for women in a sexist society are obvious. And the inevitable, or at least possible, female backlash was Zoe. But kitschy, eccentric behavior, and not much good acting, slowed this. This was a mishmash, though Zoe's relentless march to "get even" was pretty linear and not so surprising. At he end, the sisterhood reigned, as she could take out man after man with her .45, but not even the co-worker who stopped her at the costume party with a knife to the back. The irony and wink there was: Don't just look at men, but women can stab you in the back, too. Was so sorry to read Zoe was so completely hooked on drugs in real life that it killed her at 37.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
08/19/22
Full Review
jack s
"Ms. 45" (1981) movie is about a mute woman named Thana (played by Zoë Lund) going to her apartment from work. After getting sexually assaulted 2 times in one day. She kills a bunch of men that are attackers and perverts due to the trauma that she got from being sexually assaulted.
I think this movie is great. Zoë Lund (who plays our main character, Thana) does a great job in this movie. she makes her character so believable. Like when something terrible is about to happen to Thana, you can feel the fear in her or if Thana is panicking for a reason, you can actually feel her panicking.
Zoë Lund doesn't make her main character careless because a lot of movies do that. So thankfully we got a character that we do care about.
The movie can be a little hard to watch because of the violence, disturbing and graphic scenes, and the movie can be a little bit boring at points but the movie is a cool old movie that doesn't overhype itself.
But anyway, that's my review of "Ms. 45" (1981).
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
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