Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Several journalists have claimed that Chuck's writing is purely shock value and bordering on nihilistic ideas. However Chuck has maintained that all his novels have been about Romance. I am sorry to say these are the very people who would blink their eyes to watch Game of Thrones which is nothing but cheap porn, incest, rape and pedophilia. Or the very people who will pick up Murakami and glorify his books because they have hidden meanings in them, which is sad because people refuse to see what is infront of them and are always looking for that hidden meaning, something between the lines and there are frauds who use this to sell anything to make money. In order to understand a writer one must understand who he is. When one reads Hemingway or Hunter S Thompson or Dostoevsky for that matter you are not reading words but you are reading the mind of the author. So in order to understand Chucks writing you have to look at his past which is in itself horrific. However in each and every novel we are presented with a character who is fundamentally flawed but also fundamentally good. You see this in fight club where they accost the Asian clerk at the Parking Lot, you see it here in Choke where in the protagonist is deeply flawed but is humane much like humanity. All his works are similar, they are purely about redemption, isn't this what we are looking for. This isn't nihilism, nihilism is pure contempt for the world, have no values or principles you can do anything because you don't believe in anything. Which is so far away from all the protagonists in any of his books in my opinionThe sad part is this review will probably be ignored, but i believe he is an extremely underrated writer.

An extremely entertaining adaptation from one of my favorite authors Chuck Palahniuk, best known for "Fight Club". You know you got a winner when your main character is a sex addicted, colonial reenactment actor who cons people out of money by pretending to choke in restaurants and is dealing with his hospitalized mother who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. Dark comedy at its finest

Choke is the ultimate "tweeny" film – too cute to be truly edgy and too edgy to be merely cute. This leaves it in the uncomfortable middle ground of not having either a core die-hard audience or mainstream appeal.But I'm not here to market the thing, I only want to give my opinion. Well it's interesting at times but I didn't actually think it was really that deserving a film. That might be more a reason for its lack of box-office than their prudish attitude to sex, after all flash some celeb tit or show liberal amounts of nubile teenage skin and you've got a hit on your hands.Sam Rockwell plays Victor – a sex-addict whose life is consumed with fantasy, physical contact and basically release, though he is never satisfied and is in fact afraid of true intimacy. His best friend is Danny and he suffers from the same affliction, they both work in theme park portraying US pioneer times, constantly looking for targets and boldly seeking encounters – however brief.Therefore we are then subject to numerous cutaways and flashbacks showing various encounters in true Rob Schneider fashion – albeit with less "hilarious" disabilities and in a far better (though still average) film. If we believe these inserts (pardon the expression) Victor gets more tail than a rock star and flips over more chicks than Alfie in a standard week.Victor and Denny both lament their affliction yet are ruled by its power. There is in fact a group session available featuring several others sharing their predicament but the allure of the flesh seems stronger than the desire for a cure and they rarely attend.But that doesn't seem to be the main point of the movie, although to be honest I don't really know what is… Victor also regularly feigns near-death experiences – hence the title – and maximises on the newly faked formed bond by cadging off his carefully chosen benefactor on an ongoing basis to supplement his meagre income.Victor's Mother is in a nursing home in need of special care. As she raised Victor from infancy – he never knew who his real Dad was – he has an ever greater than normal bond with his Mum and visits her regularly (though again he seems to have tried it on – and often succeeded – with most nurses in the hospital). The problem is that the facility is not for Aged care but for mental health issues, and it seems his Mum has always had serious issues in the upstairs department.In fact when Victor visits his own Mother doesn't even recognise her son, so he adopts a variety of personas including lawyers and Victor's friends in attempts to get through to her to spark frank discussions about his childhood and past.On one such unsuccessful visit Victor is told by a woman named Paige that Mum is destined to move into another floor, one with more dedicated and intensive care – a bad sign – and he resists, though he does do his darndest to slide his Way into Paige's Doctor's outfit, his attempts rejected… initially.The remainder of the film deals with Victor's conflicting goals: he starts a torrid affair with Paige that quickly loses momentum when his "desire" is waylaid, while simultaneously striving to get through to his Mum and uncover more about his past.Rockwell finally lands a lead and does his best to maintain our er… interest in an increasingly convoluted plot. I continually thought of him as more likable (as a character not a love interest) guy than a conflicted man rent asunder by desperation and addiction. Angelica Huston plays Mum as a loving but manipulative, selfish and deceitful woman, and Kelly MacDonald is convincing as a woman that Victor… might like to have sex with??? The film suffers from trying to inject too many damn ideas into the fray, many of them are never actually seen through to any satisfying conclusion which creates an element of dissatisfaction. The main example of this is the Choking thing which supplies the film with little more than a title.One vice I understand, another unnecessary quirk is a tougher act to swallow… in fact one might say this film Chokes on it… just a little at least.This is a film that falls victim to its source material, while a novel might have hundreds of page with which to introduce and follow through with ideas, a movie has but 90 odd (in this case) minutes to do the same. A little more judicious exorcising of some extraneous elements might have helped here… Or they could have just bought in more nubile young teens and asked them to flash the jubblies, that works too.Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. A film that doesn't know what it wants to do or what it wants to say.

This film is based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, who also wrote the rather excellent Fight Club (1999). Combine that with a cast that includes Anjelica Huston and Sam Rockwell and I hope we're onto a winner! So it was with fingers crossed and very little knowledge of the plot, I sat down to watch.Victor Mancini is a sex addict; he goes to group sessions to help with his addiction but only ends up having sex with the woman he's supposed to be sponsoring. He works together with his best friend, Denny, at a Colonial America re-enactment park, the kind of place school kids go to learn about the early settlers. He also is a com-man, faking choking fits in restaurants in order to get money so he can support his mother, Ida, who has dementia and lives in a home. On one of his visits he meets a doctor, Paige Marshall, who thinks she knows a way to help Ida, but it's risky. I really don't want to give too much away, so I'll leave my short plot summary here.A pretty well made film with really good performances from both Sam Rockwell as Victor and Anjelica Huston as Ida J. Mancini. I must also give honourable mentions to Brad William Henke as Denny and Kelly Macdonald as Paige Marshall.A lot of the story is told in flashback, harking back to when Victor was a boy on the run with Ida. A really quirky film with all the odd twists you'd expect from the writer of Fight Club. Although it's far from prefect I enjoyed this one very much, and that's not just because of the nudity and sex scenes. Over all, not perfect, enjoyable with a few laughs: Recommended.My score: 6.8/10