joel goes too far in using movies to push his agenda. batman, seemingly hundreds of others. I won't state his agenda here, but I was wildly disappointed in this film. For a minute I thought I was watching carol Channing. That being said, again true to Joel, he gets good work out of actors. Hoffman is so over the top I think they needed a spaceship to get him out of the scenes. I would only suggest for the topic and deniro fiends. Makeup!!!

This movie was fantastic. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was brilliant and deserved more acclaim and Robert De Niro was the perfect foil. Where else can you get two great actors in almost every scene and doing the brilliant work we know they can. I am a film buff and very snobby, to be honest. High Praise from me :) I watch films constantly and this one was riveting and brilliant from the first scene... That they did it on a $15 Mil budget with two A list actors is a testament to the actors' faith in the film (Hoffman and De Niro) and their own ability to carry it with magical chemistry grumpy or kind on screen. By the time it was finished I was shaking my head: how did I miss this film? Oh yeah, that was the year I had my first child. So home sick today, perusing films on our local cable service and next thing I knew--my casual "what's that about" became the reason I could not leave the couch to answer the phone :)

I didn't think this film was that great because the storyline was all over the shop and pretty boring. The only thing I liked in the film was when Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP) taught Robert DeNiro's character singing lessons. DeNiro's character had to be assigned to a rehabilitative programme in order to fight back his stroke. I wish it happened at the very beginning when he had the stroke but instead the two guys happened to get to know each other forty minutes into the film! I thought this film could've been way better if both characters were involved more in the story because I found it confusing at times to know what's going on. The actors were OK but I just didn't get a click at all watching this film. Waste of time seriously!