I didn't expect much of this movie, I wanted to watch it just because I'm a little bit obsessed with David Bowie right now and he's in it. I was nicely surprised, for I enjoyed it very much and I might even watch it again. Over and over again.The movie has a colourful 90's atmosphere, it's cute and comic. The storyline is pretty unreal and all the characters are kind of crazy. Rosanna Arquette plays a Houdini lover and wannabe escape artist, her foolish best friend Viv designs extravagant bras. Bowie portrays a mystery English man who needs to get married to get a green card and to be allowed to stay in America. He is unbelievably charming in that role (aah his voice!) These three are all in a desperate need of money and decide to rob the restaurant they work at.The Linguini incident -surprisely not much known - is a small treasure, an entertaining comedy with a pinch of romance. Watch this, it will shift your mood. I strongly recommend it :)

As a fan of David Bowie, when I rented this ages ago, I watched it over and over again. This movie isn't the best, it lacks any substance at all. It plays as a whimsical, fly-by-night, fluffy (as someone on here already said) film. The humor is mostly unfunny. However, the film manages to be very entertaining and energetic none the less, and of course, there is David Bowie who makes it all worthwhile! To sum it up: watch it on cable. I give it 5/10.

This is a movie that doesn't do us the disservice of taking itself seriously. We're able to suspend disbelief and have fun with the wacky characters without wondering how they could possibly exist. I agree with other viewers that the pacing could have used work. But the viewer who complained that one shot of a bridge doesn't prove a movie is set in New York obviously thought movies benefit from being set in New York, a point with which I don't agree.I enjoyed Lucy's character and thought Arquette was the right person to play her. Viv, on the other hand, bothered me; Eszter Balint's slight Hungarian accent got on my nerves from the beginning. (I'm of the camp that feels an actor should either have an accent or not; if you have one, don't spend thousands of dollars training to cover up 99.5% of it, because the other .5% will still give you away.)Much as I like David Bowie, and much as he probably sold this movie for most people browsing in the video store, he really phoned in his performance here. Much was made on the cassette box, and in the reviews, of the fact that Monte is a 'mystery man'; we don't know whether he's a liar or a gambler or any of several things he claims to be early on. Problem is, at no time is it made clear to us why we should care what he is. He's boring, morose, mumbles far too many of his lines, and only turns on that famed Bowie sexiness about twice in the whole movie (once during a makeout scene that is charming until it is cut off abruptly). I was quite happy to see his character bound into the fish tank to rescue Lucy--it was the only time I saw any kind of light in his eyes, though I suppose it might have just been sparkles from the water.Yeah, I know, I complain...but I liked the fact that this plot was clean as a whistle, no big holes to mull over at the end, and the happy ending was sweet (if not entirely articulated, but then, by that time we could tell how things ended up and didn't need it spelled out for us). The dialogue is mostly quite clever, the costumes are fabulous (Lucy in her bejeweled Houdini-era flapper gowns is adorable), and I love what happened to the ring! So I do recommend this movie for rental.

Ok, I really do not see why this movie got such bad reviews. This is one of my very favorites of all time. David Bowie is hot, it had a good cast, and an inventive story board. Everyone that I know that has seen it, even non-Bowie fans, has liked it.