A young cop named Chris and a beautiful woman named Pam, begin a deep romance, but the more volatile is the known relationship, Chris has serious problems are at work, and Pam is emotionally unstable, but the two love much, their situation gets worse when they start having economic problems, and the two end up robbing banks. This is a genuine high quality motion picture, everything is perfect, John McNaughton's clever with the camera, his work is mature; Luke Perry and Ashley Judd convey feelings, both are extraordinary in their characters, Normal Life is a beautiful and sad drama, it makes you think about the American dream; the script is fantastic; this movie has a very special cinematographic language, personally I was very moved. The best thing about this movie is Luke Perry, Ashley Judd, John McNaughton, and its universal theme; wonderful entertainment.

Normal Life starts out with great promise, with a great burst of energy right at the start. But that energy fizzles out very quickly and what we are left with is a rather bad movie. The film follows a husband and wife who happen to rob banks for a living. The movie begins with their last, ultimately failed, robbery. We see the husband arrested and the wife lead police on a high-speed chase as she attempts to get away. And then we go back in time, back to the beginning, to see how these two ill-fated lovers met and what brought them to the rather unfortunate situation we have just seen. Turns out the husband, Chris, as played by Luke Perry, is a former cop. And the wife, Pam, as played by Ashley Judd, is completely and utterly nuts. A whole team of psychiatrists couldn't help this girl. But Chris thinks he can and he'll do anything to make her happy. Suffice to say their relationship doesn't quite work out as he envisioned. A happily married couple they are not.Eventually Chris loses his job as a cop and starts robbing banks. When Pam discovers what he is doing she is rather excited and suddenly much more enamored with her husband than she had been. And she wants in on the action. So they start robbing banks together and eventually we end up back where we started at the film's beginning. Back where it seemed the film had some promise. But Normal Life never lives up to that promise. It's terribly scripted. Much of the dialogue is utterly ridiculous. The acting leaves much to be desired, most notably with Perry going over the top again and again in his attempts to convey anger and frustration. He's constantly over-emoting and at times it's so laughable it's hard for the viewer to stifle a chuckle. Which is a problem because this is not meant to be a comedy.The seemingly endless confrontations and arguments between Chris and Pam become rather monotonous after a while. It's just the same thing over and over again. Every few minutes the two leads have a fight about something. It's like clockwork. It's also exceedingly dull. The story never moves along. We just spend the whole time watching these two people bicker and watching Pam have one psychotic episode after another. OK, their relationship isn't quite working out, we get it. Move along, please. It's a frustrating movie to watch because it started with such promise and then just does not work at all. You get the feeling it should have been a lot better than it is. As it is it's a rather tedious movie.

More often than not, an early title card that reads "inspired by a true story" translates to a film maker's apology for what is going to be an embarrassing work. And electronic titles as well, the cheapest possible-cheap like they use for the late-night cable movies suggests this project was scrapped-pieces pasted together into something presentable, but hardly watchable.And when you're right, you're right.Good, lonely boy meets bad, bad girl, in a bad, bad, bad, movieIt seems inappropriate to criticize the actors, as I can't imagine there was even a script. Every scene seems to be a series of bad improvs, almost amateurish audition pieces. I was a John McNaughton fan based on his first feature: "Henry:Portrait of a Serial Killer", a low budget, but high-energy, inventive piece of film making. But this mess is only familiar to that film as regards overall production value.By my count this makes 5 movies in a row where the high point of Ashley Judd's performance seems to be her undressing and /or use of dirty language. This list includes her role as the young Norma Jean Baker (Marilyn Monroe). Maybe a case of life imitates art?

I must admit that seeing 90210's Luke Perry in Normal Life's leading role did not inspire me, but after watching this film I was pleasantly surprised. The foreshadowing scene at the very start of the film gives a sense of foreboding doom that pervades the rest of the story. Pam (Ashley Judd) is a woman torn between living on the edge and having a normal, storybook life. Chris (Luke Perry) longs for such a life, but also seems to be excited by Pam's wild side. He goes from cop to bank robber in a first successful, but then futile attempt to make things right, which only seems to excite Pam more. Eventually their luck runs out, and the inevitable ensues. The last 15 minutes of this film are the best part with some surprising twists right near the end.