Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Boring

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Highly underrated comedy that gets better with repeat viewing. The verbal jousting and clever language is magnificent. A Coen Brothers film with a strong narrative arc, which is increasingly rare in their newer films. Particularly strong performances by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Paul Newman.

I have a love hate relationship with this movie. Every time I try to write a simple favorable review... I have to give up because I can not wrangle any fitting cohesiveness out from the subsequent wall O' text. And I give up in frustration cuz I simply do not have the time for what should ultimately be a course of study anyway? There is too much wonderful depth to this movie to be contained with any Justice without committing the coverage into a volume of critical survey? As many times as I have seen this movie on VHS alone, I am perty well confident that my love for the film will easily survive endless screening and It is a testament to any film that is well worn... That one can find something new with every go round. ( what comes around :) )Easily the Coen's stratagem. fun multifaceted motifs! Their underrated masterpiece!For anyone who might have doubts. I would suggest finding a copy of the brilliant script. Where the comedic genius is plainly ( and hilariously ) easy to see in black and white. Providing insight into the comedic timing written into the movie before the first light is even struck!For added perspective check out Joel Silvers Unbelievable forward included in the script for a sinister bit of perplexing Hollywood cynicism.Still remember catching Blood simple during it's original run in Baltimore at the Charles Theater after reading an interesting review in the City Paper... Didn't realize the amazing experience of catching the beginning of something special would continue to deliver this long run of some of cinema's finest experiences? But Hudsucker is the one film that truly prooves they are capable of greatness. Not only my favorite Coen brothers movie... But easily the most Brilliant underrated movie ever made.In which case one has to apologize for merely gushing and not actually writing a review. Sorry! But I don't have no time to write a book just yet.

My first ever viewing of the Coen Brother's The Hudsucker Proxy tonight left me enchanted. It's such a raucous explosion of absurd and hyperactive characters in surreal, cartoonish synergy I couldn't take my eyes away the entire time. Such is always the case with Coen fare, and I should have expected to be wowed, but every time I see a new film of their's I'm flabbergasted like its the first time discovering their work. Such is their magic; they're a once in a universe creative force that you either get, or you don't. If you aren't already cursed (or blessed, depending on how you look at it) with a really bizarre, abstract sense of humour, then chances are you just won't tune in to their wavelength and be as tickled as hardcore fans. They just have such a wall to wall comedic gold within every screenplay they tackle, a willingness to sit down with the weird, exaggerated side of life and find the uproarious elements in the most mundane of exchanges. Here we see them take on bustling late 50's New York, particularly the cutthroat corporate arena. This is also another chance to display their trademark attention to gorgeous production design and urges to poke fun at the cultural idiosyncrasies of whichever time period they are dwelling on, adding all the more personality to the piece. The ancient Waring Hudsucker (Charles Durning, making compelling work of a silent, puzzling cameo) CEO of mammoth Hudsucker Industries, has hurled himself through the boardroom window, plummeting forty four stories to the pavement below, leaving the throne vacant and prompting his vulture shareholders to circle the monarchy. Second in command Sydney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman, eagle eyed, growling evil in every frame), sets his mind to hiring an utter imbecile to run the shares into the ground, in order to prevent the stocks from going public, a ditch effort of spectacular greed. Enter Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins), a naive small town boy, shunted up from the mailroom straight into Mussburger's awaiting paws, and from there into the CEO's seat. Things look well for the scheme, until Barnes, an opportunistic golden boy, unwittingly invents the newest thing, the... well I won't spoil it for you. When the J. Jonah Jameson of 1950's New York (a rabid John Mahoney, always at the top of his game in Coen land) sends his top reporter, Amy Archer (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to snoop out the company's new 'idea man' CEO, things get wild and weird in true Coen fashion. Leigh is an actress of uncanny ability. In this film, everything is cardboard cutout, cartoonish and emotionally detached, the characters mere cogs in the hyper- real story as opposed to feeling, human people. Leigh most of all is a blustery, shameless stereotype of the mile a minute speech patterned gal that everyone's image of the 50's is like, and in a film full of pseudo real characters, she's the craziest. What amazes me is that even through that sheen of period gloss and chortling melodrama, she's still able to be the only performer to convey any emotion through her work! And emotion she shows, giving poignant little moments that the film hardly has time to acknowledge, but are there for the viewer's discovery all the same! Talk about a paradox. Such is Leigh's unequalled talent though, which I've been preaching for years, and which looks like will get a fresh track to run on with Quentin Tarantino's upcoming The Hateful Eight, and the much anticipated new Twin Peaks season. Just a consummate actress and a delight to behold in anything. This film is one of the most 'Coen' Coen Brothers flicks I've ever seen, and I'm surprised it took me so long to give it a watch. It's got deliberately over the top, quirky people, relentless social and class satire, zany screwball elements and overall, intangible charm that only they can bring us. I've always thought that the energy you get in a Coen Brothers film is so insane and unique that it's equal to those moments on the night before Christmas, a minute before 12am on New Year's Eve, or when the entire neighbourhood wakes up and trundles outside to see why there's ten ambulances down the block, maybe the final seconds of hesitation before taking a risky lakeside cliff jump; there's a palpable dose of giddy adrenaline and undefinable, primal strangeness to anything they produce, a lightning in a bottle, one in a million quality that I've only ever felt with one other filmmaker, David Lynch. Suffice to say, never a dull moment in Coen land. There's an epic supporting cast including Mike Starr, Peter Gallagher, Bruce Campbell (Sam Raimi is a co writer, bless his heart;)), Jon Polito, Bill Cobbs, Joe Grifasi, Noble Willingham, Anna Nicole Smith, John Goodman, Richard Schiff and Steve Buscemi. Fanatics and film lovers alike owe it to themselves to take a trip to this utterly nutty, deliriously stylish, endlessly funny province of Coen land, a place where you never quite know what you're going to get, never quite know what you've just watched when the credits roll, but always know you've had a good, funny bone and brain stimulating time at the movies.

After watching "The Hudsucker Proxy" again, and reading Roger Ebert's review (again), I lamentably admit that I'm totally out of words. The film is so incongruously appealing that I feel my review should match the same level of creativeness and wonder it brought on the screen. But seriously, what more can I say about the Coen brothers' "The Hudsucker Proxy" that it's one of the best-looking comedies ever. There are many moments in the film, (in fact, quite every time) where I felt myself wondering if I had to keep track on the story or my eyes on the dazzling looks it offered: from the beautiful panoramic shots of majestic and creepy Babel-Tower like skyscrapers or the sumptuous recreation of the Big Corporations' inside rooms with never-ending tables as vertiginous as the buildings, from a horizontal perspective. Roger Deakins' geometric cinematography is absolutely breath-taking and rather than being put for the only 'eye-pleasing' purpose, works as the setting of some spectacular scenes.The most notable one is the opening where the respected President, Waring Hudsucker, played by the late Charles Durning, decides to make the big dive, fed up of all that business mumbo-jumbo he had to endure his all life. That long jump and long is an understatement (Hudsucker even finds time to tell people on the ground to move away), is weirdly convincing and hilarious through the anticlimactic slap at the end, the obligatory fat-ugly woman screaming and the verbal aftermath carried by heartless board members and their ruthless leader, Sidney Mussburger, played by Paul Newman. The jump scene sums up the film's appeal: it looks great and makes you laugh. And naturally, if you're a fan of Frank Capra's classics where greedy corporate businessman use a naive and idealistic schmuck to fulfill some evil schemes, and all the subsequent archetypes: spinning closes-up on newspapers headlines, nosy and noisy journalists and the snappy wisecracking workaholic female who'll get infatuated on the goodhearted fool she investigates on (Tim Robbins is perfect as the well-meaning Norville Barnes), comic-reliefs sidekicks and all that stuff, well, if you look at Hollywood Golden Age with nostalgic eyes, "The Hudsucker Proxy" will be familiar territory for you. And that Capraesque touch clearly helps to appreciate the film.Indeed, that half-homage and half-parody approach constitutes a solid platform on which the improbability of the story can efficiently evolve. And for some strange reasons, to which the Coen brothers only know the secret, each actor, by playing his character in the required over-the-top way, gave them that touch of believability for the film's bizarre poetry. I concede it takes time to get into some characters, I for once, thought Jennifer Lason Leigh was unbearable as the journalist, now, I can't see how her performance could have worked differently. The point is not that she impersonated Katharine Hepburn or Rosalind Russell well or badly, but that she was 'impersonating'. It's a film firmly aware of its 'cinematicality'.Naturally, the film isn't beyond criticism for all that. Many would argue that its very attention to great designs and magnificent looking details give a touch of seriousness inducing more serious expectations regarding the plot. My agreement with Ebert concerns the way the poster spoiled what would have been one hell of a middle-plot twist. I'm talking of course of the circle that would be revealed as the hula-hoop. That basic circle, Norville Barnes showed to everyone, adding the repeated line "You know, for kids" as if it was supposed to give a clue, could have been the film's McGuffin since it's the very device that triggers Mussburger's desire to hire Barnes as the proxy, in order to depress the stock and buys all the company's interests, but what a great surprise it would have been to have that revealed in the middle of the film.Apart from that missed opportunity, the film works and never leaves any hint of a dramatic evolution of the story. And when drama, there is, it only plays as set-ups from some screwball situations, the opening with Norville Barnes trying to jump from the Hudsucker's high clock is a reminiscence of John Doe's character (Gary Cooper) in "Meet John Doe", but I defy anyone to claim that he saw the resolution coming. Not to say that it would satisfy all the viewers, but still, it fits the film's surrealistic touch to the film, with all flash and style, but not without substance. Granted "The Hudsucker Proxy" isn't "Metropolis", "The Crowd" or "Brazil" but by its stylistic recreation of these iconic setting, leverage our thoughts to the more satirical material. Maybe it's too far-fetched, but I didn't think the film needed to speak explicit statement against savage capitalism; the point is smoothly made without distracting from the slapstick and screwball material. The assumption of 'all flash and no substance' isn't totally irrelevant but with such flashy brilliance and such great dialogs, the film can't be branded as unsubstantial. It's classy, surrealist, and funny and much more, it succeeds to put all these qualities together, something a few films can pretend to achieve. And on a more basic level, the film is so damn funny. I laughed, I laughed a lot. Maybe not as much as in the first act, but the laughs were equally combined with true satire and a dazzling photography, served by superb performances.The film works both on the surface and its content. I wish I could say more, I wish my vocabulary would be richer, but all I can do is summarize the film by paraphrasing its repeated line "you know, for laughs" That's what it is, a movie made for laughs, and the rest is just a delightful cinematic experience, something fresh made out of familiar material. Basically, the Coen brothers did the same than Norville Barnes: they reinvented the wheel.