Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9781568121581
Format: Color
ISBN: 156812158X
Label: Bmg Video/Sbme
Languages: Array
Manufacturer: Bmg Video/Sbme
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Bmg Video/Sbme
Release Date: 1998-05-26
Running Time: 92
Studio: Bmg Video/Sbme
Theatrical Release Date: 1997-12-12

There's a fine line between quirky and gimmicky; at times Hugo Pool can't decide whether to be a cute comedy or a mawkish melodrama. Alyssa Milano is Hugo, the owner-operator of a pool company. She has a staggering 44 pools to service in one day, so she shanghais her gambling-addicted mom (Cathy Moriarty), a drug-whacked director (Robert Downey Jr.), and a new client, who happens to be an ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) sufferer (Patrick Dempsey), to help her. Hugo's under an or-else deadline to fill a mobster's (Richard Lewis) pool, so she dispatches her alcoholic junkie dad (Malcolm McDowell) to fetch Colorado River water in a tank truck and bring it back. He picks up a strange hitchhiker (Sean Penn) and becomes obsessed with his shoes; meanwhile, a romance blooms between Hugo and the new client. Of course, Milano is the only sane one in this melange of weirdoes. McDowell channels both Jimmy Durante and Wallace Beery in a bizarre role, Sean Penn is inexplicable, and a rough-looking Downey Jr. sports an indeterminate accent (imagine if Inspector Clouseau was from, say, Romania). Fans of eccentric comedies and offbeat characters (and Alyssa Milano) may enjoy this, while others may find it a little contrived and tedious. --Jerry Renshaw

Customer Rating:
Summary: alyssa milano
Comment: this movie has a very bad story,script and the acting was so so.I would avoiding buying this since it is not a good movie

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Hugo Pool
Comment: I thought the interaction between Patrick Dempsey and Alyssa Milano was beautiful. Some of the other characters kind of spoiled the movie for me. The idiodic character that Robert Downey, Jr. played in my opinion, could have been left out. Sean Penn's character was just plain wierd! I bought the movie for Patrick and Alyssa's acting. Patrick was surpurb as an ALS victim. I really loved Alyssa's character.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The cast makes the film good
Comment: Hugo is Alyssa Milano, a pool cleaner. It's a day in her life where she has to put water in a gangster's pool (Richard Lewis) or she's going to be killed. She also has lots of other customers to take care of. So she gets her odd parents (Cathy Moriarty & Malcolm McDowell) to help her. There are other strange characters in this movie. The plot is weird yet I found this bizarre film charming due to the people in it.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Everyone Calls This 'Quirky'
Comment: And I guess it is.

But really, this is more affecting than off-putting as some of the reviews below have suggested.

The title of the film refers to the lovely Alyssa Milano, who owns a pool-cleaning business. Robert Downey, Jr., Malcom McDowell, Richard Lewis, Cathy Moriarty, and Patrick Dempsey also star in the film.

I found the film fresh, refreshing, and a mild surprise. You'd expect a film where one of the principal characters is dying of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) to perhaps lapse into deep maudlin territory, but it doesn't. Instead, the thread of other stories, all revolving around an effort to fill mobster Lewis' pool in the middle of a drought, balance each other out to lend a sense of lightness and humor to the enterprise.

It's a fun film to watch. Unlike other reviewers, I wasn't put off by Penn's or Downey's performances. I thought they were fine. In a movie such as this, you don't expect slavish adherence to some 'truth' as you might demand from a factual work. The movie is more of a flight of fancy, and it's enjoyable as such.

Another thing to comment on is the wonderful cinemaphotography. The lush, vibrant colors go well with the over-all tone of the movie.

Recommended.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Alyssa makes you yank your yanker
Comment: She is pretyy pretty pretty and wears plenty of skimpy clothes here, a masterpiece of b-film cinema.

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