Reviews

The movie fell apart when Cogburn (Bridges) went on too long about his wives as they were riding along. BAD writing. First he had his FIRST wife, who left him and went back to her FIRST husband. She took his boy with her. Then he had a SECOND wife, blah blah blah.

By that time the story was lost. These modern writers can't see the forest for the trees. They needed an editor for that off the rails gibberish.

Immediately following that they ran into the bear skinned mountain man who was completely unconvincing. And whose voice was pathetic.

Movies used to have GOOD dialogue writers.

They used to have wonderful secondary, character actors who had very distinctive, wonderful VOICES.

Boy has this movie making gone downhill.

A cartoonish movie by left winger Mankiewicz.

He lays it on so thick the movie becomes a joke at many points.

This lame attempt at a movie comes across like a fifth rate stage play.

The dialogue is tedious, overlong at several points, especially where one character talks too long without any relief in the form of response from the character he is talking to.

An example is the scene where the head of the hospital goes on and on and on in an early scene in his office with the white head doctor.

Widmark gives a cartoonish, cornball performance.

Linda Darnell makes the most of the material she is given.

Not just the ending, but too much of this movie didn't ring true.

The dialogue was stilted at many spots.

The ending was cornball.

Robert Ryan was underused.

Lee Marvin's dialogue in particular and his delivery of it was stilted, affected.

The dialogue came across as if it was written by some sophomores who had never had any contact with the real world.

Lancaster's speech to the girl fell completely flat. Why? Because it was poorly calculated by the writers, and too long.

Marvin constantly fell flat with his one liners, sounding affected and unconvincing.

Who would have known that a story packed with such top level actors all packed in one movie could fall so flat? This is the worst I have seen Marvin.

He was at his very best in Seven Men From Now.

Overall a failure as a movie.

Several times at the start the film dies before it has even gotten started: at the very start; at the high school graduation; at the repetitive scenes of the girl running.

Not a good way to start a movie.

The main character certainly fooled me. I would not have guessed she was British.

The only scenes of interest were those dealing with the veterans. The war scenes were pathetically done.

A half-hearted effort by a poor director.

Stay away from this one.

This is an unfortunate film.

If described on paper in a few sentences the story seems of interest. The film is packed with good actors.

The problems are: The kid they chose is wrong for the role. They keep saying he is 11 when he looks at least 14.

The dialogue is a disaster. The scriptwriters should be shot (figuatively--not literally). They have the kid talk and act like he is an adult. What were they thinking? Scenes are too long and drawn out when they have already made their point.

Tommy Lee Jones' accent is overdone and obnoxious at the start. Later he tones it down. The scenes with the bad policeman harassing the kid are so poorly done and drawn out that it becomes cartoonish.

Some of the females are nice. The kid's mother is cute, and the nurse is more than cute.

As it turns out, this movie was a total miscalculation on the part of its makers. And that is a pity----with so much good material (actors) to work with.

You seldom see as many good acting jobs in one movie.

For me the highlight was the little blonde girl being photographed holding the stuffed animal.

"I told you not to blink," the fur-coated lady who intended to sell her hissed.

Among the appealing characters were those who appeared only briefly but helped the little boy, including the man who walked him to the bus, the man who ran the second orphanage, the workers he played cards with on the train, the lady smoking between train cars who helped him, the skinny red-haired girl who got him started on his trip, etc.

I found the accompanying musical score to be offensive at many points.

In the many scenes with large numbers of people moving across the countryside, the composer used too much brass. Brass instruments tire the ear very quickly.

His use of syncopation seemed repetitive as the movie went along, like he was working according to tired, very predictable formulas.

After a while, my thought was, "Oh, no. Not another scene shot from a distance of people moving across the countryside, with this grating, intrusive, too noticeable brass instrumentation and trite, too obvious use of syncopation." Worst of all was the composer's inability to write longer melodic lines. Everything was made of short (one measure or less) motives, which he then repeated endlessly to fill out a group of four or eight bars.

As for the movie, Ustinov and Laughton were great. As was Woody Strode. Probably the most effective acting in the entire movie was Strode sitting in the pen before he and Spartacus went out to fight.

One thing I did not understand was when Spartacus' men took the Roman camp in the first battle. Was my copy missing something? I saw them approaching the camp, then the next thing was their burning the camp and dragging out the Roman commander. But I saw no fighting with the Romans there. Could that have been cut because of the very oppressive censors of the time? Jean Simmons is a very good actress. She had two scenes that stood out: 1-with Spartacus the first time, and 2--her scene with Olivier in his home near the end.

I was glad to see John Ireland get a mildly prominent role.

Some of the dialogue was embarrassingly bad. Specifically, scenes in the middle of the movie where Douglas repeats the same words or short sentences for no effect except to make me wonder why they had him say the same thing three times, four times.

Meanwhile the dialogue involving Ustinov, Olivier and Laughton was top level.

The starting section of the movie done by director Mann was excellent.

All in all a top level movie, despite my having to turn down the sound repeatedly to avoid the abrasive, interminable brass.

The story is just not believable.

Very tedious in addition.

Unsympathetic characters to boot.

It took too long at the start with Cruise's unsympathetic character.

Many of the scenes were not believable. Came across to me as a half-hearted effort by hack writers who were already thinking of their next assignment.

I can't believe this won Oscars.

Edward G Robinson never won an Oscar.

He was never nominated for one.

I'll take Edward G. over this crap anytime.

I found POINT BLANK to be disappointing, to put it mildly.

I watched it because it was highly touted by someone I know.

Obviously different people have different taste.

There was not a single sympathetic character in the film.

The start was totally confusing.

I took a while, a long while, to catch on the fact that the director was using constant flashback of what Marvin saw when a current situation stimulated the memory of an earlier similar situation.

The fight backstage in the nightclub was poorly done.

Marvin's slipping into Vernon's penthouse building past his guards was not very believable.

I may have missed the point but the movie was a total disappointment to me.

I couldn't believe how bad this lame attempt at religion bashing was.

Typical left wing bashing of religion which passes for 'humor' in such sophomoric left wing circles.

Spit and sneer at the Bible, nuns, etc etc etc. And that supposed to be hilarious.

It wasn't.

One of the dullest excuses for humor I had had the bad fortune to waste my time on.

The love of Dudley Moore's life was a horsefaced excuse for an actress.

The pacing of this lame British 'humor' was deadly and sleep inducing.

A breathtakingly well done movie.

Herbert Marshall is terrific in his understated way with his extremely subtle acting, including minute changes in his facial expression and his use of his hands. Notice how his face, mainly on the left side, turns into a tiny smile when he gets the Richard Carlson character to admit that he is in love with Alexandra.

Marshall's evoking of the persona of an extremely ill man is masterful.

I see the final talk between Regina and her brother Ben as follows: Ben asks the question---"What was a man in a wheelchair doing on the stairs?" and comments with a smile that "Things may change."

When Regina tries to pin him down, he will give no specifics.

I think what he is saying is that while Regina has controlled the brothers into giving her the 75% because of their crime with the bonds, that Ben will do the same to Regina, i.e.: exert similar leverage over her, in the future over the fact that she appears to have killed her husband.

Charles Dingle's evocation of Ben, an evil but intelligent man who NEVER stops thinking, even for a moment, of what will work to his advantage, is another breathtaking performance. Of course in his case he had the top level dialogue already written for him.

Marshall's extremely understated performance, accomplished almost entirely by what he evokes without dialogue, is a virtuoso performance.

This movie, with its revoltingly leftwing script by Emilio Estevez, who obviously learned well from his leftwing father Martin Sheen, is an orgy of leftwing talking points and images.

Pathetic example of the leftwing drooling as they wallow in their own excrement.

OF COURSE there was no mention of PALESTINIAN murderer Sirhan Sirhan.

Why? Because the leftwing LOVES their 'palestinians.' The leftwing loves their Arafart--as well as their Mao Tsung, their Castro, their 'Che', their Tito, etc.

So of course, in putting forth the false picture its agenda demands, this leftwing script WOULD NOT DARE mention that one of its beloved 'palestinians' murdered Bobby Kennedy.

EVEN THOUGH the movie is about the killing of Bobby Kennedy.

What a lame exercise in leftwing falsehood.

Pathetic example of the leftwing drooling as they wallow in their own excrement.

The dialogue in spots was excruciating.

The supposed "debate" with the governor was nauseatingly juvenile.

The retarded script appears to be the effort of a low mentality leftwinger who probably thought he was doing something magnificent.

Completely incoherent.

This has to be the worst, most pathetic excuse for a "movie" I have seen yet.

It takes a lot to make Kevin Spacey look bad, but that was accomplished in spades with this piece of incoherent leftwing crap.

Whoever put this mess together took lots and lots of drugs.

A movie for Jane Fonda, Daily Kos, MOVEon.org, Ramsey Clark, Sean Penn, Alger Hiss, Hillary Clinton, and any other rabid, incoherent lefties you can think of.

Enjoyable movie.

It is a tongue in cheek detective story.

Berenger uses a phony, gravelly voice and is a mess as a detective: He trails the wrong man for the entire movie.

When he stands up at the nightclub he hits his head on the lamp hanging over the table--twice.

He does ridiculous things in his supposed detective work, one after another.

This is a good natured film and an obvious spoof.

The funny things is--it works.

It is entertaining and funny in its silliness.

I have seen many far worse movies.

I would not have known that Berenger had this level of talent for comedy.

This story had so many holes in it you could drive an oil tanker through each of them.

Cher wore black leather in court as a defense attorney? The suspect is deaf and dumb, but Cher talks to him constantly? The suspect overpowers several policeman before he is subdued. But then Cher goes into his cell alone to talk to him? The suspect hits her, but then she continues being around him? What a wreck of a movie.

At various points the dialogue was so bad it must have been written by a graduate of a junior high school creative writing class.

In the middle of jury selection Cher has a lengthy tete a tete with prospective juror Quaid?

In cross examinations the lawyers don't ask questions but speak in declarative sentences constantly?

How can you take a movie seriously with so many preposterous moments in it?

In this day of videos and fast-backward, freeze-frame etc, you can watch an actor and dissect what it is that catches your attention about him/her.

Mineo actually steals the show here in my opinion. And he does it from two terrific actors.

Natalie Wood showed she was a great actress in the final scene from Splendor in the Grass. She does less here, but fills her role perfectly.

Dean did more acting in East of Eden than here, where he does less very subtle acting.

In Rebel Without a Cause, Mineo gives the greatest display of of facial and vocal changes.

As for the queer connection which some posters push so hard, I don't see it at all.

The Mineo character is a mess, which many kids are.

He needs adults. That doesn't make him a queer--not in any way.

Many people in this world, even adults, clutch at a hero, someone they admire and get pleasure out of looking up to.

That does not make them homosexuals.

Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the impression of security to many people. That is why he was elected President of the US FOUR times.

Others admire someone who does things they think they are incapable of doing--especially a very brave person who comes through when it counts.

Every girl I have known has gone through a stage while growing up where attention or lack of it from her father has a powerful effect on her, often well into the future.

I am not a female so I can't understand this, but I have seen and been told repeatedly by females I have known of the powerful level of attention females have on the way their father treated them. This can have an effect on them to some degree for a lifetime.

There is nothing "incestuous" in this. Judy's need for approval from her father is typical.

The Mineo character saw Dean as a hero who could do things the Mineo character himself was afraid and/or incapable of doing.

There is nothing homosexual about that.

Casting a movie where the actors are supposedly high school kids is always a problem.

Dean and Buzz look a bit older than high school age, and "Crush" and some others definitely do.

Mineo and Natalie Wood are more believable as being that age.

There is no question that this movie brings up basic situations that affect human beings approaching the adult world, both on the male and female sides, but from what I see here homosexuality is not one of them.

This film reminded me of Kazan's East of Eden in some respects.

Apparently he liked to direct young actors.

In East of Eden it was James Dean and his brother and his brother's girlfriend vs his father Raymond Massey.

Here it is Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty versus their parents.

I think Kazan miscalculated somewhat in the earlier Pat Hingle scenes, letting them go on too long after the point was already made.

Natalie Wood was definitely beautiful.

At the end she sees Bud living in squalor, with his Bud Jr. an urchin playing with a barnyard animal inside the house under the kitchen table.

Pat Hingle drove Bud nuts and Natalie's mother did the same for her.

I really thought at times the scenes for each could have been cut a bit.

In addition the scenes involving Bud's sister went on much too long after they had already made their point.

Toots looked liked he was about 37 years old rather than the high school kid he was supposed to be.

It appeared that when Deanie (Natalie) returned home from the mental hospital she was very calm and adult.

She treated her mess of a mother at that point like she (Deanie) was the adult.

And in the scene where her father spoke up and told her where Bud was living, she went over to him and treated him like she was the adult there as she thanked him.

Overall I think the obnoxious parents (Hingle and Deanie's mother) were laid on a little too thick.

The overall result of the movie is definitely in a depressing direction.

Natalie Wood looked terrific and was terrific as an actress here.

Gosh, I was really thrilled the way the two girls (hotel workers) told off the complaining guests (husband and wife) at the end.

How thrilling.

What a note to end on.

And the bad guy with a neck as skinny as Audrey Hepburn's.

Yeah, he was really convincing.

Apparently this was a movie made for late teenage females.

The girl is the hero and they can live through her as she beats up the bad guy, kills another hit-man, steals a car, saves her father's life, etc.

Only an audience of that age group could sit through a piece of tripe like this and believe that a male actor with lips like a girl and a neck competing with Audrey Hepburn's is a murderous bad guy.

I can't believe I watched this.

(I did because the girl lead looked good on the DVD cover and because I was stuck at home because of the weather).

What a waste of time.

Godfather Two is Coppola's movie---and he had no instincts for the mafia. The Godfather author, Mario Puzo, objected to having Michael kill his own brother, but finally gave in to keep his share of the Hollywood millions.

Godfather Two has lightweights as heavies: the drunken New York mob guy and Hyman Roth can't compare to Barzini, Sollozo, and the other heavyweight bad guys of the original Godfather written by Puzo.

Godfather Two loses the atmosphere of the mob while it meanders lengthily into Cuba.

The main point that makes Godfather Two inferior is that it does not contain a single sympathetic character.The endless scenes in the Lake Tahoe home of Michael's are tiresome, dreary after a while, and lack interest as compared to the original Puzo story.

This movie shows a deterioration from the original, just as the mob has deteriorated in recent years.

Coppola had no right to think he could write his own Godfather, and his inferiority to Puzo when it comes to dealing with the mob shows up here in technicolor.

Meanwhile, poor Mario Puzo watched his story being degraded by the instinctless Coppola, objected at first, and then gave in. Pathetic.

The only scenes that actually ring true here are from the original Puzo book (the earlier life of Vito Corleone).

The contrast between the dreary Coppola script of Godfather Two and its dreary characters is brought home strongly by the final (flashback) scene where Sonny Corleone and the others are around the table. As soon as Sonny appears, everything comes to life.

This film is a loser. When it's over you will say, "I want my time back." I can't forget this piece of tripe soon enough.

Slow, deadly boring. I hope London is not that dreary.

The sets all looked 'indoors' with the continual parking of vehicles.

Much was left unexplained. The speech by Malcolm McDowell when cornered made little sense. He was jealous of a teenage boy?

Remind me to avoid these actors, this director.

My sympathies to the actors who made the mistake of getting involved in this fiasco.

A dreary failure of a movie.

Marlon Brando in a musical ? Jean Simmons in a musical? No thank you.

This was torture.

The Brando fan cult is something I have never understood.

He doesn't belong here.

The guy who played big Julie was well cast.

Can't say the same for Brando or Simmons.

With all the experienced performers available with experience in musicals it is a pity that this was so miscast.

I actually saw a better and more entertaining production of this musical at a local high school once.