Good start, but then it gets ruined

Absolutely the worst movie.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

If you ask me - Crazy Love (from 2007) has got to be one of the most vile, demented and truly sickening "real-life" Romeo & Juliet stories ever told.Crazy Love was the kind of moronic "love" story that could only happen (where else, but) in America. This fast-food, tabloid-mentality documentary was about as American as is the grotesque reek of McDonalds' restaurants.I certainly view both Linda Riss and Burt Pugach as being nothing but a revolting pair of white-trash, publicity seekers who really-really-really deserved each other (till they both turned to rot in hell, wrapped in each other's cold, reptilian embrace).Riss and Pugach (and their nauseating "love" affair) were the ultimate in sickening garbage. And for them to gloat about it and re-tell all of the sordid, blow-by-blow details of this despicable "on-again/off-again" relationship (in this documentary) was like putting this thoroughly disgusted viewer through the hideous torture of "The Rack" for 90 solid minutes.

Of all human traits, "love" is probably the least easy to categorize or define. We like to believe that it comes in all shapes, sizes and forms, but is there a limit beyond which the definition simply cannot go, a type of feeling that, though it may resemble love on the surface, is, in reality, an entity quite different from the actual thing? Without setting out to do so, Burt Pugach and Linda Riss are two individuals who have truly done their best to redefine "love" on their own terms.Almost from the outset, the story of Burt Pugach and Linda Riss had all the ingredients of a classic tabloid sensation: romance, jealousy, rage, obsession, disfigurement, imprisonment, reconciliation and redemption, all wrapped around a crime of passion that would shock and horrify the nation. And this would turn out to be no run-of-the-mill, here-today/gone-tomorrow type of scandal, either, for it would flourish over the course of no fewer than five full decades, from the late 1950's to the mid 1990's. Now, straight out of the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction file comes the documentary "Crazy Love" to provide us with a brilliant and mind-blowing account of their story.This disturbing and fascinating film begins in 1957, when a lawyer from the Bronx named Burt Pugach met and fell in love with a beautiful, yet naïve, young woman named Linda Riss. Though at first carried away by this man's easy flowing charm and wealth, Linda tried to back out of the relationship when she discovered that he was already married and had apparently no intention of ever asking his wife for a divorce. Unable to live with Linda's rejection, Burt quickly became a stalker, going so far as to hire three men to go to Linda's house and throw lye into her face, resulting in almost total blindness for the unsuspecting girl. A sensationalistic trial then ensued, resulting in imprisonment for Burt and a life of loneliness for Linda. Yet, baby, you ain't seen nothing' yet - for it's from here on out that things REALLY start to get crazy.Suffice it to say that, when all is said and done, "Crazy Love" will leave you gaping in stunned silence - or at least scratching your head in amazement at the mind-boggling truths it reveals about human nature. This film conjures up a whole host of contradictory responses in the audience, making us question just how exactly we are supposed to feel about these two individuals and the relationship they've somehow managed to forge out of all this madness. Is Burt simply a raving maniac who can't tell the difference between love and obsession, or is there some basic element of decency in his character that might allow him to find true forgiveness and redemption for his crime? Is Linda merely a hapless victim drawn to the man who's abused her, or is she a calculating opportunist willing to do what it takes to obtain some security and love in this world? Or does she - in some weird way and despite all he's done to her - actually love the man? What's admirable, from an artistic standpoint, is that the movie doesn't answer any of those questions for us. Instead, we are lured into this crazy, topsy-turvy world of inverted values, then forced to find our own way back out of it - if we can.Writer/director Dan Klores has structured his film in a way that is particularly effective for anyone not yet acquainted with the story. He begins by relating the initially rather mundane details of this romance in strictly chronological order, with no real inkling of the darkness that is to come, leaving us to question after awhile just why this particular story and this particular couple merit all this attention. It isn't until about twenty or thirty minutes into the film that he finally lowers the boom on us, and we come to realize the significance of the tale he is relating. He does this again later in the story (yes, there is a second major boom to drop), as we watch in spellbound amazement as one astonishing level after another is slowly peeled off the onion.With an abundance of photos and film clips - along with songs popular at the time playing on the soundtrack - Klores is able to bring the various eras in which this all took place to vivid life. But, obviously, his key selling point is the numerous interviews he was able to glean with people intimately connected to the story - including Burt and Linda themselves. Nobody could ever probably fully comprehend their relationship and the fact that it somehow "works" for them may say more about human nature than we may indeed care to know.Still, there's no doubt that this is one movie that will have you thinking long and hard about it after it's over.

I haven't seen CRAZY LOVE nor am I particularly interested in doing so. I spent many decades in a prison cell in upstate New York where in one of those upstate prisons, Burt Pugach was an inmate. In prison, Burt was ignored by nearly all the inmates because he was antisocial even in that setting; rarely did I ever see him walking around the outdoor recreation yard. However, allow me to give you a personal glimpse into Burt Pugach, the inmate. In the late 1960's, in Queens County, a young, very attractive married mother of two children, was arrested for the kidnapping & murder of her two children whose bodies were never found. Much controversy surrounded this kidnapping/murder case, and there were numerous rumors about the woman having ties to a Mafia big shot named Grace. When the woman's first murder conviction was overturned on appeal, and she was readying for her second trial, Burt Pugach wrote a letter to the Queens County District Attorney, Thomas Mackel, advising that he "has information about (the woman's) case." Burt Pugach was taken to Mr. Mackel's Office in New York City, and shortly thereafter was returned to the upstate prison because as Mr. Mackel told the media, Burt Pugach's information is worthless. A few days later in the prison, Burt Pugach was returning to his cell carrying a stack of old New York Law Journals when an infamous jailhouse lawyer now deceased, Jerome 'Jerry the Jew' Rosenberg (who spent five decades in prison and died in prison in 2009) clubbed Burton Pugach with a steel pipe; Burt was taken to an outside hospital for treatment, and subsequently returned to the prison to serve out the remainder of his 10-20 years sentence. I was there, I never spoke to Burt Pugach, but saw him throughout the years he and I were in that particular upstate prison. kidblast3

This film was pretty heavily hyped and garnered some very good reviews on the TV movie review shows ("Ebert & Roeper") so I was expecting a top-notch documentary. Unfortunately, as another reviewer stated it would have made a decent "Court TV" (or "Dateline or Oxygen True Crime") episode and that's about it.The film takes its time getting to where it wants to go and when it finally gets to its pay-off, there isn't that much of a surprise. Many people in abusive relationships are there due to their own inability to see how mentally messed up they are. That's not much of a revelation.(I wish the filmmakers would have delved more into Burt's marriage to his first wife. Perhaps she is dead so the filmmakers couldn't get her perspective on this crime. It would have made a more fully realized movie if they had.)