Rotten Tomatoes isn’t the be-all and end-all for any movie’s chances of success, whether we’re talking about box office dollars or at-home viewership. However, you can’t deny that landing the unwanted distinction of a 0 percent score on the aggregation site creates a stink that’s hard to wash off, something The Poison Rose knows all too well.
Directed by journeyman filmmaker George Gallo, the modern-day mystery did at least come packing an ensemble cast that would have piqued interest among those who don’t typically frequent their local bargain bin. John Travolta, Morgan Freeman, Brendan Fraser, Famke Janssen, Robert Patrick, and Peter Stormare all feature, but they’ve all got one eye on the paycheck.
Travolta headlines as a former football player who now works as PI, but gets more than he bargained for when a seemingly innocuous missing persons case draws him into a tawdry web of lies, deceit, and dead folks. Not only that, but the daughter he’d long since become estranged from emerges as the prime suspect in the case, in the event things weren’t convoluted enough for your liking.
On top of the ignominious 0 percent on RT, the user rating is also very low, but still substantially higher at 21 percent. That spells a bad time all around for anyone who decides to sink 98 minutes of their time into The Poison Rose, then, but there appears to be quite a lot of people willing to do so.
As per FlixPatrol, the awful affront to the good name of film noir has charted on the Prime Video global rankings, presumably because unknowing subscribers were drawn in by the big names plastered all over the posters and trailers.