This film is billed as coming from "the makers of I Spit On Your Grave", which is probably the worst selling point I can think of, both because I Spit On Your Grave is the vilest, most misogynistic piece of trash ever made, and because this film bears absolutely no resemblance to it.
This is not a review of I Spit On Your Grave (even though I kind of just gave you one), but it's important to note that attempting to entice anyone who enjoyed a film that devotes half its running time to a series of brutal, graphic, and degrading rape scenes into watching this because the same director created both is a bit like telling kids who like Sesame Street to watch Meet The Feebles because both have puppets in them. Don't Mess With My Sister has very little violence, zero nudity, and never ventures anywhere near the categories of horror, exploitation, or revenge flick. The title has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, and doesn't even make sense considering that the only person messing with anyone's sister in this film is our central protagonist, who actually receives pretty minor punishment for his transgressions.
While certainly guilty of having the most misleading title in the history of cinema, Don't Mess With My Sister is actually a pretty decent little drama with fine acting and a simple but effective story: An unhappily married man who works in an unsatisfying job with his wife's two brothers engages in a tryst with a belly dancer. Complicating things a bit is that before this tryst he accidentally beats a man to death while saving the belly dancer from an attempted rape (I Spit On Your Grave fans will likely be very disappointed that the rape isn't successful, nor does it last for 40 minutes). When wife and brothers discover the affair, they engage in a furious rampage of revenge that involves hitting the man with a purse and dumping books out of a box. Not quite as impactful as the castration in Meir Zarchi's infamous predecessor, one would imagine.
Basically, this film is, at its core, a character study of a man who has settled into an unhappy life and whose desire to overcome his stagnant situation leads to an unfortunate accident that turns his world in knots. The lead actor attempts to channel a young Al Pacino and doesn't come close, but does a fine job nonetheless. The characters are well-defined and suitably complex to create some emotional resonance (not the one-note rapist cretins that populate the world of ISOYG), and while the plot is rather simplistic, the ensemble handles the material with enough care that the mundane becomes drama. The ending is a bit dicey, and I'm not quite sure how things are resolved... this is probably because they aren't. But, leading up to the explosive climax (okay, that's a bit too strong a term... can one car exploding be considered "explosive"?), this lean bit of minor misanthropy is entertaining enough to be entertaining.
Not quite as exciting as sodomy and revenge, I know. But, given the choice between watching a backwoods rape fantasy or this tepid but serviceable street drama, I'll put in Don't Mess With My Sister over I Spit On Your Grave 11 times out of 10. I realize that I accidentally reviewed ISOYG along the way here, but it's actually rather necessary, since the most rewarding part of Don't Mess With My Sister is expecting something as stomach-churning and reprehensible as the former and getting the rather straight-forward affair-crisis drama of the latter.
Maybe I'm wrong about Meir Zarchi, because there is definitely intelligence present here beyond that of the basic feces-hurling ape on display in every frame of ISOYG. This certainly doesn't redeem the director for creating the most horridly lurid piece of cinema ever filmed, but seeing this, it's certainly striking how wide the film-maker's interests are.
Recommending this, however, becomes tricky. If you liked I Spit On Your Grave, you will definitely hate every second of this movie. If you agree with my assessment of I Spit On Your Grave, you may enjoy this enough as I did, but I'm forced to wonder how you even stumbled across this film unless you found it solely because of the "from the makers of" tag I cited earlier, which is kind of the only reason this was preserved on DVD, or even made to begin with, come to think of it. That's an existential conundrum I cannot address, but I will say without hesitation that this is a far superior movie by miles, simply because it IS an actual movie instead of a series of rape vignettes created to titillate misogynistic subhumans.
This is not a review of I Spit On Your Grave (even though I kind of just gave you one), but it's important to note that attempting to entice anyone who enjoyed a film that devotes half its running time to a series of brutal, graphic, and degrading rape scenes into watching this because the same director created both is a bit like telling kids who like Sesame Street to watch Meet The Feebles because both have puppets in them. Don't Mess With My Sister has very little violence, zero nudity, and never ventures anywhere near the categories of horror, exploitation, or revenge flick. The title has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, and doesn't even make sense considering that the only person messing with anyone's sister in this film is our central protagonist, who actually receives pretty minor punishment for his transgressions.
While certainly guilty of having the most misleading title in the history of cinema, Don't Mess With My Sister is actually a pretty decent little drama with fine acting and a simple but effective story: An unhappily married man who works in an unsatisfying job with his wife's two brothers engages in a tryst with a belly dancer. Complicating things a bit is that before this tryst he accidentally beats a man to death while saving the belly dancer from an attempted rape (I Spit On Your Grave fans will likely be very disappointed that the rape isn't successful, nor does it last for 40 minutes). When wife and brothers discover the affair, they engage in a furious rampage of revenge that involves hitting the man with a purse and dumping books out of a box. Not quite as impactful as the castration in Meir Zarchi's infamous predecessor, one would imagine.
Basically, this film is, at its core, a character study of a man who has settled into an unhappy life and whose desire to overcome his stagnant situation leads to an unfortunate accident that turns his world in knots. The lead actor attempts to channel a young Al Pacino and doesn't come close, but does a fine job nonetheless. The characters are well-defined and suitably complex to create some emotional resonance (not the one-note rapist cretins that populate the world of ISOYG), and while the plot is rather simplistic, the ensemble handles the material with enough care that the mundane becomes drama. The ending is a bit dicey, and I'm not quite sure how things are resolved... this is probably because they aren't. But, leading up to the explosive climax (okay, that's a bit too strong a term... can one car exploding be considered "explosive"?), this lean bit of minor misanthropy is entertaining enough to be entertaining.
Not quite as exciting as sodomy and revenge, I know. But, given the choice between watching a backwoods rape fantasy or this tepid but serviceable street drama, I'll put in Don't Mess With My Sister over I Spit On Your Grave 11 times out of 10. I realize that I accidentally reviewed ISOYG along the way here, but it's actually rather necessary, since the most rewarding part of Don't Mess With My Sister is expecting something as stomach-churning and reprehensible as the former and getting the rather straight-forward affair-crisis drama of the latter.
Maybe I'm wrong about Meir Zarchi, because there is definitely intelligence present here beyond that of the basic feces-hurling ape on display in every frame of ISOYG. This certainly doesn't redeem the director for creating the most horridly lurid piece of cinema ever filmed, but seeing this, it's certainly striking how wide the film-maker's interests are.
Recommending this, however, becomes tricky. If you liked I Spit On Your Grave, you will definitely hate every second of this movie. If you agree with my assessment of I Spit On Your Grave, you may enjoy this enough as I did, but I'm forced to wonder how you even stumbled across this film unless you found it solely because of the "from the makers of" tag I cited earlier, which is kind of the only reason this was preserved on DVD, or even made to begin with, come to think of it. That's an existential conundrum I cannot address, but I will say without hesitation that this is a far superior movie by miles, simply because it IS an actual movie instead of a series of rape vignettes created to titillate misogynistic subhumans.