''Commandments'' is a 1997 American romantic comedy-drama which was written and directed by Daniel Taplitz and stars

Aidan Quinn Aidan Quinn (born March 8, 1959) is an American actor who made his film debut in '' Reckless'' (1984). He has starred in over 80 feature films, including ''Desperately Seeking Susan'' (1985), '' The Mission'' (1986), ''Stakeout'' (1987), ''Aval ...

Courteney Cox Courteney Bass Cox (previously Courteney Cox Arquette; born June 15, 1964) is an American actress and filmmaker. She gained international recognition for her starring role as Monica Geller on the NBC sitcom '' Friends'', which aired from 199 ...

and

Anthony LaPaglia Anthony LaPaglia (, ; born 31 January 1959) is an Australian actor. He is best known for his role as Jack Malone in the television drama ''Without a Trace'' (2002–2009), for which he received a Golden Globe Award in 2004. LaPaglia won a Pri ...

. The

executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights ...

was

Ivan Reitman Ivan Reitman (; October 27, 1946February 12, 2022) was a Czechoslovak-born Canadian filmmaker. He was best known for his comedy work, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. He was the owner of The Montecito Picture Company, founded in 1998. Film ...

Plot Synopsis

Ever since Seth Warner's (

) wife died two years ago, his life has gone to pieces. In his rage, he affronts God who seemingly responds by stopping his suicide attempt and his screaming at God above by crippling his dog and putting Seth in the hospital. So Seth sets out to break all of the

ten commandments The Ten Commandments ( Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, ''aséret ha-dvarím'', lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words, cf. Mishnaic Hebrew עשרת הדיברות \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְ ...

. Moving in with his sister-in-law, Rachel (

), and her reporter-husband, Harry (

), he systematically starts breaking each of the commandments, increasingly aided by Harry and Rachel. When Rachel finds out Harry has been having an affair, she responds by having an affair with Seth. Seth then steals all of Harry's personally autographed guitars and pawns them, subsequently lying to the police that it was part of an insurance scam and Harry was in on it. Harry loses his job and finds out Rachel is pregnant with Seth's baby. Seth attempts to kill himself, but is swallowed by a whale and the belly is cut open and Seth is released. Rachel decides to marry Seth and raise the baby with him. Harry stands on top of a building with Seth's crippled dog the same way Seth did before and asks for a sign from God. Perhaps to be saved like Seth was.

Critical reception

The film has received negative reviews, with a 24% "rotten" rating by the review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

,Rotten Tomatoes
Retrieved 2010-04-10. based on 17 reviews.

References

External links

* * * * 1997 films 1997 romantic comedy films American romantic comedy films 1990s English-language films Films about Christianity Films about God Gramercy Pictures films Religious comedy films Universal Pictures films 1997 directorial debut films 1990s American films {{1990s-romantic-comedy-film-stub