I'm sure there was a pint to them making The Dark Side of the Sun, I'm just not sure what it was... this is a film that really has virtually no redeeming features whatsoever. Though at least it has an interesting production history: "
The film was shot in pre-war Yugoslavia during the summer of 1988. As editing neared completion civil war tore apart the region and much of the footage was lost. In 1996, after a five-year search, all of the lost footage was found and returned to producer Andjelo Arandjelovic, who worked on getting a distribution deal for the film, before it ended up getting released direct-to-video.

" (taken from IMDB.com).

Firstly we have Rick (Brad Pitt), a young lad (late teens I guess - Pitt himself was 25 when the film was originally shot) who has an extremely rare medical condition that means he can't be exposed to light – especially sunlight. This means that he has to go round covered from head to toe (much to the chagrin of female fans). A veritable motor-cycling Darth Vader (minus cloak and lightsaber), he wins the heart of singer / actress Frances (Cheryl Pollak).

Against the wishes of his father (Guy Boyd) he decides that 3 days of life in the glorious sunlight would be better than a lifetime enduring treatment after treatment in an attempt to cure his condition, but he doesn't tell Frances that he is the black-suited motorcyclist. He has fallen for her, but she has fallen for him, while she only likes the unhooded Rick as a friend. Oh yeah, and for some unexplained but hinted at reason, Rick's mother has become more or less brain dead. What fun, eh?

Well, the first part of the movie, despite some appalling dirges being sung in between some fairly decent classical music that doesn't seem to fit too well with the film, isn't actually all that bad. The basic concept is quite interesting, and the early scenes with Pitt and Boyd are quite sensitively handled. There's even an attempt at humour here and there. Sadly, when the action starts to pick up, many scenes are just so completely ludicrous that you only keep watching it in a kind of bewildered stupor, wondering just what stupidity is going to come next. (Rick's dad must have superpowers by the way, one feeble, badly-aimed punch from him will knock someone out completely!!) The romance could have been quite sweet but ended up just being silly, and all emotional impact was lost from the film in a sea of pointlessness and stupid scenes. The directing was, I'm afraid, pretty awful, as in fact was every area of the film. The only possible redeeming features were (I'm clutching at straws here) half-decent performances by Pitt and Boyd. The ending was not exactly what I expected (which I guess is a good thing...), but was pretty darn depressing.

That's it – avoid this movie at all costs, unless you want to break out in painful sores.

The only good thing I can say about this movie is that at least it wasn't quite as bad as The Magic Bubble, which is on the same 4-film DVD pack as this!! (I should have known... but then the other 2 films in the pack were actually pretty decent, and I'll be reviewing them soon. :-D)

(This was rated "R" for some nudity and language, rated 12 in the UK.)

Runtime: 101 minutes (which only makes it about 100 minutes over-long!)

Recommended:
No

Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age