Thinner (1996) on Netflix
Billy Halleck, an obese lawyer in Connecticut, is acquitted after his car kills a Romani woman. Her father touches his face and says one word: thinner. Billy then starts losing weight.
- Netflix1.9/5
- IMDb5.8/1037,437 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes19%
Trailer
Plot summary
Billy Halleck is an obese lawyer in Connecticut. His wife Heidi wants him to forget his fixation on food. He has just won an acquittal for the Mafia boss Richie Ginelli on a murder charge, and he is celebrating. As he drives, Heidi tries to distract him. He runs over Suzanne Lempke, an elderly Romani woman, and kills her. Billy is tried for manslaughter and acquitted: his friend Cary Rossington is the judge, and the police chief Duncan Hopley gives false testimony. Suzanne's father, Tadzu Lempke, touches Billy's face on the courthouse steps and says one word, thinner. Billy then loses weight quickly although he eats more than ever. Fearing cancer, Heidi calls the doctor Mike Houston.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Thinner (1996)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- According to producer Richard P. Rubinstein, Thinner took years to be greenlit because the studio kept changing its reasons: it refused to approve the budget, doubted the effects would be convincing, and at one point feared Halleck's rapid weight loss would look too much like the AIDS epidemic.
- Stephen King reportedly wanted the actor and comedian John Candy to play Billy Halleck, the lead role, in the film version of his novel Thinner.
- Makeup effects artist Greg Cannom made a series of fatsuits for actor Robert John Burke, who played Halleck, with matching latex pieces for his face and hands, and rigged one fatsuit with silicone breast implants for the shower scene where Halleck's chest is exposed.
SPOILER
Additional prosthetic makeup depicted the curses on the judge and the police chief, and the filmmakers used a dummy to portray Halleck's wife dying after she ate the pie.
