Reviews

This was a very unsatisfying movie. It starts out with promise and spectacularly fails to deliver . Where to start? The basic premise of a chap going off to live alone in the wild with adventures all along the way is a good one. But nothing really interesting or compelling ever happens in this. The best thing about travelling and wandering about the world is all the interesting and unusual characters you meet along the way. But I can't describe the tedious, one dimensional humourless dullards our 'hero' meets. The long drawn out 'deep' interactions they have about nothing except how sad and unhappy their lives are. All so full of pain.Deep people aren't full of pain. Deep people are people with something to say. The scenery was nice though and there was some camera work going on but that can't make up for flat characters, a dead script, lack of a cohesive storyline that develops (this was just a collage of fragments of happenings strung together going everywhere but nowhere) bad acting and most of all any real philosophical idea behind it. After all, people take off into the wild alone for deep reasons regarding their relationship to modern society not just because they had a tiff with their parents and like eating squirrels. There was a point where some tensions develop in the killing of a big bull thing and you expected that our boy was becoming a man with all the challenges. But then it took a serious dive when he goes back to the hippies and meets a very pretty but incredibly shallow girl and quickly reverts back to being a child again. From then on it never picks up and draws out slowly and interminably to a sad ending. I've said enough. The fact that so many think this worth and 8 rating just shows how shallow and dumb most people are. Perhaps I should go find myself a nice shack in the woods of Montana .....................

This is pretty bad. All That Jazz starts off fairly well and I like tales of drink and drugs and fornicating anti heroes but the film falls apart on so many levels. First of all, Roy Scheider is a good actor but he's really miscast in this. Despite being really watchable he just doesn't cut it as a philandering drinking pill popper. He's just too straight a guy. But the worst part about this film is it takes a terrific dive about three quarters the way through when an endless death scene is played out between a hospital and a staged dance routine. This didn't work at all. You could see what the director was trying to do but it isn't funny or dark comedy or serious or anything at all. All you end up with is something entirely macabre and cringeworthy. After having watched so far I felt compelled to stay to the end with each last minute dragging out painfully with the film never seeming to end. Every second I found myself wishing our hero would die quickly and put me out of my misery. Death, dying, smoking, hospitals, coughing, blood, open heart surgery and dancing troupes in costumes covered in veins don't do it for me. Awful.

There's only one reason to watch this film and that's to see what happens at the end. There are hundreds of reasons why not to watch it: dodgy premises, implausibility, wooden script, a cast of 'characters' who have no character at all bar Mr White who has his moments. There's also an utter lack of humour and acting that you're more likely to find at Hackney council's Wednesday adult evening workshop class. Man, that bespectacled guy was a real cringe to watch.

Implausibility can be OK in a film if it's engaging but this takes a turn for the worse about half way through when our unlikeable characters turn brutal and sadistic and begin a fest of gratuitous violence towards each other and violently/sexually assaulting one of the women. I can't believe some of the good reviews for this trash. Is that really what people want to see in a film? Not me. This tries to pass itself off as arty smarty but like other films of its ilk it's ultimately just unimaginative, depressing and meaningless. And if you do get hooked in to the end you're gonna be very disappointed with the 'twist'.

My advice? Don't bother.

It's hard to review this because it's so good and so bad at once. As the forerunner of the Bicycle Thief it has all the same realist filming and it's a delight to watch in slow paced and close up the Italy of the 1940's. The music's nice and the various shots are quite arty but not pretentious but then the bad: what kind of a story was THAT? SPOILER ALERT! It's basically about a child whose Mum keeps popping off with her lover. She then keeps popping back and we get the jilted husband looking all serious and mean and hurt. Various scenes of the kid with a crumpled sad face and you begin thinking WTF?!! In the end she buggers off with the lover the father dumps the kid and goes and tops himself!! At that point i just lost it and started laughing in the place you're supposed to cry in it was all so ridiculous and absurd and melodramatic. So all in all a watchable film but there's no realism or even neorealism in this story at all. Unbelievable.

Not a bad movie in the sense you can waste a bit of time and not feel too bad about it. I disliked it though, not for the same reasons as most: trite plot, stolen ideas, plot holes, etc because it's still a bit racy but more for the completely unengaging lead actors. Our heroine just comes across as a cold bitch and our hero as a sad wimp. At one point he throws a hissy fit and stomps out the car and our lady has to try and cajole him back to carry on driving. This kind of role reversal is embarrassing and cringeworthy at best. Neither leads have any character or personality and both are utterly humourless, one dimensional and nothing develops between them. Our great suspense moment is whether our puppy dog hero will get a good snog at the end and guess what?>>>>>>>>>>>.......he doesn't!!! Pathetic. So that kinda sums up the film. A little peck on the cheek. A kind of thanks for trying but no thanks.

I can't really see the point of this film. There doesn't appear to be any reason for its existence. Some criminals take over a house with an annoying family for hostage and from there it goes nowhere at all. You couldn't add any spoilers for this film because there's nothing to spoil. Because nothing actually happens!! The acting is fairly good but it's all wasted really as the poor actors have nothing to work with and just go round and around repeating themselves. So this little 'classic' just spins its wheels for nearly two aptly named desperate hours. Its worth three stars simply because it's a period piece but you spend most of your time looking at the cool cars and the clothes, your mind wandering. Humphrey Bogart does Humphrey Bogart with no surprises at all and although he's enjoyable to watch you just get bored because he's the same in just about every movie you've ever seen him in. I'd pass on this one if I were you.