User Reviews

So...Joey Lauren Adams is this professor in philosphy......With that voice????

It somehow didn't seem right to me. At least we've learned about the dangers of drugs. Before you can say LSD, you're entangled in a web of deceit, with both the FBI and the mafia on your tail. No use to get philosophical about it, just say no. As Buffy would say: 'cos it's Wrong!!!

The beginning of this movie is weak, and overly simplistic, especially the early scenes with the Cindy's father. The most amusing part is the fling in the forest, where Sarah Michelle Gellar's sexiness is notable. However, it gets better. You feel the guy's confusion in his head, his mindset, and the overall suspense picks up. The biggest disappointment is it ends abruptly. The plot could have been carried on even further, I believe.

James Toback has a wild spirit as a filmmaker and it lets itself out in Harvard Man in both the good and the bad that one finds in self-indulgent artists (I mean that as a compliment, sort of, since art has to be indulgent to a great degree). He takes a story of a basketball player at Harvard, Allan (Adrian Grenier), and transforms his conflicts with his multiple love interests (mob-daughter girlfriend played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, philosophy professor Joey Lauren Adams), his big gamble that he has to take a dive at a game to get his parents money for their house, the FBI after this backfires, and, mostly, his adventure into fifteen thousand milligrams of pure LSD, into a delirious little epic. Yes, epic.

Toback's style is all over the place from start to finish. His camera reaches up high and is usually moving, even when there is absolutely no real reason to. The excess in the camera movement is also complimented (or not) by an over-written script, which is something that doesn't happen usually unless a writer, like Toback, doesn't know when to stop with his characters. He compensates by having them talk fast (that or his editor takes out the little catch-my-breath beats in a conversation), and while not as annoying as the camera movements in most scenes in the first half of the film, it's noticeable. It's a filmmaker reaching far, maybe too far, into a realm of personal expression and putting the story into a modern setting - check the Bach mixed with rap and rock for more of that.

And yet it's hard to totally begrudge what Toback does get right here. When we're meant to take a lot of this seriously in the first half (the deep philosophical talk in Chesney's class about Kierkegard and Lichtenstein or that mob 'family' of caricatures), it's interesting but it never really works dramatically. But when Toback suddenly shifts the tone in the second half, when Allan takes the three cubes of LSD, it suddenly becomes a full-on comedy of errors and surprises. To be sure, some of the visual jokes and whacked-out faces that Allan sees could be attributed to the same style as Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, it still works. Especially funny is how Allan just seems to slip out of the FBI's hands (watch the one really strong scene of cinematography, sound, and acting all combined in the FBI interrogation room), and a masterpiece of a cameo appearance from Al Franken (like Toback also former Harvard alum).

It also helps with the comedy in the second half of the film that the acting, more or less, is pretty strong. Sarah Michelle Gellar actually gives one of her most convincing, well-rounded performances as a B-word whose intentions are not very well hidden but puffed up with rich-girl sass and sex appeal. Grenier also goes for broke as a guy with a good sense of himself, until he bugs out from the acid and runs all over town. Adams might be a little more of the one-note performance, the stable voice but not as intriguing as Gellar and Grenier in their roles. They're all put in a movie that is mixed up and has a lot to say about sex, drugs, life, living, betting, sports, and lots more. I respect Harvard Man, and if those trip-out scenes come on TV I'll be sure to watch again. But recommend? No. 5.5/10

I have seen " HARVARD MAN " for the first time on dvd and i think it is a notable failure with a great cast.

James Toback is a good director but this is not one of his best films simply it is poorly written and directed and it gives the cast nothing to do whatsoever.

Adam Greiner is ok if a little wooden but he gets completely out acted by the utterly gorgeous and totally wonderfull Sarah Michelle Gellar as the nasty and calculated Cindy.

The rest of the cast...Rebecca Gayheart,Ray Allen and,good to see him in a movie after all these years,Eric Stoltz are excellent but as i have said they are not given much to do.

So in short...notable failure that could have been good.

This movie had so many chances to be comedic, dramatic and even interesting, but just failed on so many levels. In some instances the actors were so "acting" that it was just unbelievable. Nothing good here. Joey Lauren Adams is just good to listen to because she is a bit sexy. Hell it is so bad that I just saw the end and I can't remember how it ended... I had to make this comment at least 10 lines for it to be posted. Now, you have to know that I am just writing to get it posted. This is how bad this movie was. If you get stoned or do some LSD, it just might be your cup of tea. If you have the brain power to dissect the movie. Even then, don't expect too much.

The movie has an unintentionally ridiculous plot involving tri-sexual FBI agents, mobsters, a hot blonde philosophy professor, high stakes gambling, a natural disaster, and a cameo appearance by Al Franken. Interspersed with these things are characters tripping on drugs or philosophizing as college freshmen do, at great length.

Leading man Adrian Grenier has gotten handsomer since he made this movie; he grew into his looks. He did a good job acting, especially considering how young he appears to be here and the oddness of the material.

I was expecting the movie to be more offensive because the director has a reputation for doing unspeakable things to females in life, and given his other movies. This movie just appears to be a drug-fueled, delusional, freshman fantasy, but not as enjoyable as that sounds.

The fact that this director was given several movies to direct after this, each more offensive than the next, is disturbing.

Notes for the sensitive: The movie opens with footage from a sex scene and there are several more throughout. Plenty of drug usage too.

Some people have commented on the oddness of the colors in the movie but I just saw it on Showtime and found those to be normal, except for the brown river water in Boston. Maybe the colors were corrected or maybe there are colors only some people can see, like dog whistles.

If I were to express my true views of this film, it would not be allowed on the internet. Totally egregious, a travesty, a cinematic endeavour that has successfully set humanity back at least 30 years. I just can't understand what possibly possessed this guy to make this film, let alone for Buffy to star in it. Not to mention its racism. Evidently, black people don't go to harvard, but if they do, rest assured that they play basketball and carry guns!Besides the only two blacks in the film were a gun toting roommate and a nymphomaniac neighbourwith designs on the two white protagonists, all that was missing was to have them eat some fried chicken and have grills. I am lost for words. Let me use some pseudo-deep philosophy to ponder it, similarly to Kirkegaard, as would be said in the film. I really hope that as many people as possible watch this film and consider how its release was ever made possible. Honestly, why did his black Harvard roommate attack him with a gun???

I wouldn't say this movie is ordinary. There is something about it that makes it stick out of the crowd. Perhaps it is the exquisite camera work, perhaps the intensity and the tempo of it, or maybe merely the fact that the acting performance is excellent. It might be a bit intense at the start, but once you pass the threshold, you get sucked into the story. Anyway it is a good movie, and even if the story is not unique itself, the movie truly is. Watch it, it's worth the money renting.

I love Sarah Michelle Gellar, she is capable of fantastic acting as made clear in the Buffy series. She has, unfortunately, been given no opportunities to show her considerable talent in film. While Cruel Intentions is a bad movie, Harvard Man is one of the worst - if not the worst - movie I have ever forced myself to sit through. The writing is practically non-existent. There are many scenes of back and forth dialogue with little purpose but to fill time. There are several simultaneous plots (gambling, drug addiction, sexual cheating, dealing with the mob), none of them interesting in their execution. There is no coherence - each plot thread seems forced in to fill time and is not interwoven with a big theme. One soon gets the feeling that the movie was started with little passion from the director, then finished in a hurry to meet a deadline. Harvard Man is transparently what it is: a quickly-made attempt to capitalize on Gellar's fame. To watch it is to wait for its end, amazed that such a thing actually made it as a major motion picture. I CAN'T believe the average rating here is close to 5. Anyone who says this movie is anything but awful is either mentally deficient or has an agenda. The only reason to watch this movie is to gawk at its atrociousness.

This movie is like a mix between Fear & Loathing and a Kevin Smith movie with an added touch of philosophy, and if you can believe it, muddled dialogue. Like many stories and movies a lot of the altercations between the characters seem a little too coincidental, and far from logically possible. The best part of the movie by far is the acid scene. I wouldn't rate this movie as low as some, and would stick it somewhere around the middle of the heap. Worth watching if you get the chance to catch it on TV, but don't go out of your way. Joey Adams performance is tired and forced. I did enjoy getting to see Rebecca Gayheart again though, haven't seen her since Earth 2.

I was convinced in 2001 that the worst film that I ever had the displeasure of watching was 13 Ghosts. Now I'm afraid to admit that I may have very well come across another movie that just might be even worse. I can't even put into words how ridiculous this is so I'm not gonna waste any of my time doing so. This has to be seen in order to understand how awful it is. I believe this would be the shortest review I've ever given and I've never been so sure of myself quite like this before.

This low budget offering from disturbed filmmaker James Toback ("Black and White") features Adrian Grenier as a Harvard University basketball player in money trouble who is conned by his shaddy girlfriend (Sarah Michelle Gellar (playing a rif on her "Cruel Intentions" role) to throw a basketball game for money. Add in subplots about the mob, a couple of shaddy FBI agents (including a weird performance by Eric Stoltz), a teacher he has an affair with (Joey Lauren Adams) and a bizare drug trip segment and you have.. a typical Toback picture.. Still, the performances, especialy by relative newcommer Grenier are excellent and the story is weird enough to keep you fascinated.. Not for all tastes due to its subject matter but a good film. GRADE: B

Meh, this is an okay time filler that won't stick in your mind for too long. It's the typical American comedy that uses black humor to criticize some aspects of America's politics and culture/society.

On the positive side, it's not a typical teen comedy with "toilet humor" or campy situations; it has some decent dialogs and interesting ideas towards drug addiction and mafias.

The plot surrounds a sports guy who is obviously the most popular thing in college. He has a sexy hot and kinky girlfriend who happens to be the daughter of a powerful Italian mob man. You know the rest... drugs, basketball, mafia, FBI, a sexy and smart teacher, etc.

This movie is not a mess but not a masterpiece. I still recommend it for those who are into teen movies with an edge.

Basketball is a winter sport, right? Hmmmm. Based upon this movie, it's interesting that, in Cambridge, MASSACHUSETTS the weather during basketball season allows for sleeveless clothing outdoors, leaves on the trees and no snow or ice on the ground. Trust me, I live in the Boston area - even a freak warm spell during the months of b'ball season would not look like this.

So - aside from the fact that this is just a very bad movie - they didn't even try for authenticity. Especially when so much of the movie's backdrop is the Harvard campus and Cambridge. No wonder I had never heard of this movie until it was broadcast on TV and nothing else was on to watch!

Well, I'm sure I can find something else . . . gotta go find the remote!

The new form James Toback minted in his still-sharp-looking 2000 BLACK AND WHITE--a sort-of-Godardian essay movie heavy on cultural politics, flamboyant improvisation, and Toback's sexual obsessions--got kicked to the curb when JT finally made his long-in-the-works autobiographical bildungsroman, which originated with Warren Beatty, and later languished in the fields of Leonardo DiCaprio. Supposedly cast by Mary Vernieu, the movie is really cast by Toback's weiner: what else explains the surrealism of Joey Lauren Adams as a Harvard philosophy professor (at 28!) lecturing undergraduates on Wittgenstein's distrust in the expressivity of language? Or, for that matter, Rebecca Gayheart as a hard-as-nails (but, of course, secretly bisexual) FBI agent?

In BLACK AND WHITE, Toback's zany stunt casting (Brooke Shields as Nick Broomfield! Brett Ratner as a sleazy hack filmmaker!) worked, because the director let 'em roll, baby, roll. Here, Toback seems to have patterned his dialogue scenes after HIS GIRL FRIDAY--and the editing gooses the rhythms even further, so every scene plays like a MAD TV parody of crystal-meth freaks having a 78-rpm conversation.

Adrian Grenier plays the hero, Alan, a Harvard point guard, philosophy freak, and cocksman extraordinaire, who greets mob goons and Martin Heidegger alike with the same cool, adult, always-unexpectedly-detached repose. He shocks everyone in every situation with his infinitely wise underreaction to everything. Grenier suggests a moist pretty-boy naif in a Truffaut or Assayas movie; only late in the day, when he overdoses on LSD, does he seem to be acting at all. (That's not meant in a good way.) He divides his bed time between a mobster's daughter (Sarah Michelle Gellar, going for indie street cred just in case SCOOBY DOO didn't turn out) and the aforementioned girl-philosopher-queen (played by Adams as a kind of baby-voiced, bulbous-nosed Diane Sawyer). When Alan has to shave points in a Harvard-Dartmouth game to help his folks in Kansas rebuild their house after a tornado (why this movie allusion?), he gets in trouble with the mob and the Feds--and, this being a Toback movie, it's only a four-way with Eric Stoltz and three hot tamales that can get Alan out of hot water.

Like Toback's other dud, THE PICK-UP ARTIST, HARVARD MAN seems to have been thought-over to death. Toback massaged this material for many years; the LSD material and even the mob stuff dates the movie, marks it as Toback's bittersweet homage to his early-sixties youth. Set in the present no doubt for economic reasons, the picture makes no sense; but worse, Toback's heart isn't in it. This miserable cast doesn't give him the charge of the astonishing mix of great actors, "interesting" actors and stunning nonactors that made up BLACK AND WHITE. As another Toback gem, the non-fiction THE BIG BANG, proves, he needs a party full of bright minds to get things sparking. Without cast, Toback's Dostoevskian torments quickly turn into congealed Cinemax sleaze--and that will be the elephant graveyard where this blooper will no doubt lie.

Alan Jensen (Adrian Grenier) is the star basketball player at Harvard. They're not that good in a league nobody cares about other than gamblers. His girlfriend Cindy Bandolini (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is the daughter of a mob boss. He's also sleeping with his philosophy professor Chesney Cort (Joey Lauren Adams). Alan's parents lose their home in a tornado. Cindy offers him a way to make money fast by shaving points. Instead of her father, she borrows money from her father's associates Teddy Carter (Eric Stoltz) and Kelly Morgan (Rebecca Gayheart). Unbeknownst to her, they're actually FBI agents.

The visual style and dialog mannerisms overwhelm the plot. The classical music, quick paced speaking patterns, and camera work leaves this struggling to flow properly. It never has a chance to breathe. The actors are good for a more natural style but they're not great enough to pull this off. The movie is simply trying too hard.

I can't stand movies that have no realism. The main character would never make it into Harvard, he's not smart enough... not to mention he never went to class or studied. And if you want to talk about the basketball quality, I've seen horrible high school team that are way better than the losers they had in this movie. Is it really that hard to grab some guys who can actually play to shoot these scenes?

It's hard to even know where to start with how bad this movie is, and I don't mean in the sense of R rated content bad, but in the sense that this movie was so poorly constructed that it should have never been made.

Before I dive into the details, I would like to say that there was only ONE good thing about the movie, it struck home to showing the viewer that you never want to do drugs - ever. And it was probably my favourite part of the entire movie as well, seeing Alan taking quite the acid trip because honestly it was the most entertaining and action filled sequence of the film.

Right off the bat, the movie opens with multiple frames showing different things at once - never do this in any movie its a fatal flaw and makes the viewer down right confused on where to look at and breaks the perfect illusion of being apart of the story. Then there's the orange tinge that's added to the entire film! Why would anyone do that? Its distracting and makes the movie feel cheap. I think one of the worst parts was the music, it was played over the actors dialogue making it hard to hear them talk and ruining the seriousness of the scene. The audio of the movie was already bad to begin with but adding the music just made it worse. To top that I swear the camera man or the writer has a serious case of ADHD, the camera is constantly moving from one view to the next or zooming in or zooming out. Each scene is cut short as we must quickly move on to the next. There's literally no standing still to enjoy the moment or try and figure out what is going on. I could understand doing this affect once the drugs scenes started but doing it before hand makes the movie feel chalky and far from smooth. But the editor took it one step further, instead of there being smooth scenes he added these little "jumps" to them, like the scene was cut then reshot and poorly pasted back together. Normally you hide this by cutting the scene to a new angle of the camera, but no, this was done in the middle of the scene on the same camera angle making it the oddest thing I have veer seen in a movie when it comes to cinematography and editing. Then of course they added in odd camera angles and the shaken camera movements....

The story was weird and boring because it was extremely simple. It did pick up finally half way through, but before then it was a challenge to keep watching the movie. It honestly didn't make sense why Alan would take as much drugs as he did at one time. I get that he was feeling anxious and everything, but with the battle of not wanting to take it to begin with because he knew how dangerous it can be - why on earth when you finally decid to give in, you take all of it at once and not a little?

One of the oddest things they added was the sex scenes. Normally sex scenes are about the sex as the main focus, it can be passionate or rough or even funny, but instead the actors were having full on conversations at the same time. Or they were listening to the radio or distracted by something else other then just the sex, making it weird and far from intimate. The writers also kept cutting between future scenes and present scenes, the constant back and forth was distracting and hard to keep up with. It seemed this was supposed to be a narrating effect or to speed up the film more, but it really didn't need to be narrated or sped up, instead it made it confusing as to what was going on.

The acting wasn't great, but it is hard to make the acting stand out when everything else in the movie is terrible. Sarah Geller and Joey Adams did a decent job for their roles, but Adrian Grenier was definately cringe worthy as the lead.

I thought this movie would be decent, but god was it a piece of trash.I can't believe Sarah Michelle Gellar would want to be part of this movie. The sex scenes were gross and way unecessary. It seemed the whole movie revolved around thoses scenes and drugs. I just didnt understand what this movie was going for. My rating, 1/10.

This is a highly entertaining and accurate look at the world Dr H discovered. His "problem child" is indeed a means by which to expand your consciousness. It is highly disappointing to see a writer and production team cop out on a plot line and re-"direct" (uhum) to follow the assumptions and perceptions of the ignorant masses. The negative end-image of this plot line delivers a message of hazard and caution in this world of psychedelics. The case in point is that judgement should be reserved for those who have tread the path...and those who have tread the path do so willingly, consciously, happily and with a greater understanding of themselves and the relativity of things. Is it possible for us all to be so fortunate as to discover our very own truth through a simple mind-body experiment. The experience is not reality...granted. The revelations brought on by engagement with a world within this world is what provides us with the perspective to finally see. i.e. How can you walk a mile in someone else's shoes without unavoidably still wearing your own socks (perceptions). The answer implied is: strip away your own sense of reality, your own consciousness and you will have successfully placed yourself out of your box. QED - time to expand your minds

This film obviously is the vain, presumptious project of a young bunch of filmstudents. The story is flat and full of narrative cliches. Also there is a lot of male wishful thinking in here (eg. the student-heros liaison both with his young, blonde philosophy-professor and at the same time with some rich chick owning a sports car). The drug fantasies later on are a poor-mans REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Everything is striving to be hip. But the jump cuts just look cheap and fidgety, making the viewer nervous instead of adding tempo. Avoid!

After reading some negative reviews on imdb.com I want to comment on this movie as well. I really enjoyed this picture. It is so recognizable, identifiable, to follow the story of this Harvard student who struggles with his puberty and, like any normal kid, experiments with drugs and sex. Scary to see him get involved with the mafia. The movie is full with philosophical quotes and this is done in such a way that it gives the movie a bit of a creepy atmosphere. The voice of Joey L. Adams fits perfect in this overwhelming impression. The happy ending (the good guys win from the bad guys) is also what I like in typical American movies like this one. It was a great movie!

this is one of the worst movies i've ever seen in my life. i've never been subjected to more pretentious, yuppie film school drivel in my entire life. the acting is mediocre, they try to lure you in with twisted sexuality and drugs, but it all comes out being plain obnoxious. rent it if only to flush it down your toilet. sarah michelle, you're better than this. you don't need to do a crappy movie to be edgy. you need an edgy movie to be edgy. stop. stop stop stop stop stop.