Reviews

The film has a limping quality almost from the beginning: stock characters - like the wise-cracking, envious cop; the black police officer who has come up through the ranks thanks to Eastwood's character - and dialog straight out of "Dick & Jane." That there was going to be a romance between Eastwood & the Graciella was as obvious as her cleavage and improbable in terms of what either character had in the way of interest for the other.

Why do they keep replaying these tired romantic cliches? Forrest Whittaker plays a character whom we are supposed to identify with precisely because he gives us so little to identify with. And the depiction of the gangsters is coy & unconvincing.

As usual, Ang Lee has a wonderful eye for movement and a genius of a cinematographer. The depiction of warfare is utterly unlike the usual elaborately choreographed stuff of too many movies. Fine performances all around but the Afro-American who is barely recognizable as the man who was the lead in Basquiat is especially fine. Look out for the moment when he expresses his preference for a certain letter.

There are many things to admire about this film, but the thing that got me above all others was the part of an eccentric recluse, the sort of role that Hollywood loves & romanticizes but which here is absolutely convincing & unlike any character I've encounterd in film or in life. Also a very convincing & disturbing depiction of Tourete's syndrome

There's an off-beat whacky quality to this movie and characters you can - but ought not to - feel superior to. The "girlfriends" dance has classic qualities written all over it. and the surprise cameo by John Sayles is a wonderful bonus.

Everything in this movie seems to me to have evolved rather than being contrived as is so often the case in American comedies. The characters are all credible, and some are refreshingly likeable while the "bad" guys get what they deserve, but only that rather than the overkill typical of moralistic movies. Stacey Cochrane's debut as writer/director.

Every one of the 5 or 6 times I've watched this, I notice things I hadn't paid enough attention to before, but then there is so much in it. It is an extremely generous movie as well as one that combines anguish over the state of US life with forgiving humour. Not a film to see so much as one to see again!