Too much of everything

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Did you people see the same film I saw?

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I expected something more provocative and daring from Milos Forman, after all he has won two Oscars for best director. Instead I get a rather boring film which masquerades as an impassioned fight for free speech.Larry Flynt is a sleazy, provocative and abrasive personality. In the movie we see Larry (Woody Harrelson) and his brother run a strip club in Cincinnati where he is known for sleeping with the strippers. There he ends up with a long term relationship Althea (Courtney Love) on the verge of just being old enough to be the new sripper and the woman Larry later marries.Like most men, Larry notices that people did not buy Playboy to read the articles. They wanted to see pictures of naked women and he published Hustler, which offered women in more explicit poses. Larry even managed to obtain nude shots of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis which sent sales through the roof. However Larry's success in porn also attracts the attention of anti porn campaigners and the ire of the religious right who took him to court.Alan Isaacman (Edward Norton) is the frustrated young lawyer who takes on Larry as a client and has to put up with his erratic behaviour as they fight for first amendment rights. Both take a bullet for their troubles leaving Larry paralysed.Now I am not going to get prudish here. Larry Flynt is a pornographer, he had sex with his strippers, he exploited women, took advantage of the unequal relationship he had with women under is control whether it be in a strip club or a photo studio. Larry is no champion of free speech, it just helps him get where he wants to go just as befriending President's Carter sister was convenient for him. Frankly Ruth Carter is the only interesting character in this movie.You know this film has been sanitized to please Larry as he appears in the film as a judge. Woody Harrelson plays Larry as an erratic quirky clown, a sexed up one who might also be a manic depressive. I can certainly understand the psychological trauma he felt after being paralysed.Both Harrelson and Norton give good performances, Courtney Love was ok but she looked too old for someone who was technically a minor when she first met Larry. You can tell how bankrupt this film is. It wants to be provocative and titillate its audience, yet when Love poses for the nude shots, she is covered up by objects or conveniently clothed in lingerie.

Seemingly, it is very convenient to use the details of historical data to force the audience into an emotional atmosphere of a story, but it has already destroyed the basic law of drama. Because the historical value of a real event does not necessarily mean that it can play a positive role in a dramatic adaptation. This may explain why most chapters of the film seem to be unfocused. The director Milos Forman tried to save this film with a skilled emotional ending, but it was too late.

Milos Forman's biographic drama, though a little dragging and momentumless towards the middle, is a well-made movie, with incredible acting to steer it through.The movie misses the point, and tries to portray Mr.Larry Flynt as such a likable honest man. Larry Flynt, who had countless number of wives and divorces, whose ex-wives claim he was a beater, whose own daughter accused him of sexual abuse, who disowned his own daughter, whose magazines are a bit too sexist... is idealized a bit too much in the movie. But for what purpose? Why not show him the way he is? The whole point is to concentrate on the importance of the first amendment; no matter what kind of person it is, and what he/she is trying to express, the amendment gives them the freedom to do so. If the story was told from the neutral point of view of the lawyer (played by Edward Norton), with the magazines and the religious institutions on either side, it would have made a more compelling point.The acting is top-notch, and the only thin which holds the movie together. Woody Harrelson is a delight to watch, and Courtney Love is surprisingly good in her acting. Mr. Nortan does a charming supporting role.

Courtney Love is the worst part of this movie. She's terrible, hard to stomach, and can't act to save her life. THAT SAID....This is one of the best movies I've ever seen, and it really makes you think about what it means to live in the USA. For those of you out there reading this review who do not live in the USA, you've no doubt heard about how we Americans like to pride ourselves for being so freaking awesome... until someone points out how backwards and self-absorbed we really are. That's not to say Americans are bad (quite the contrary), but we definitely have a problem admitting when we're wrong. This movie makes no apologies, and goes straight for the jugular. And thanks to Milos Foreman, and Larry Flynt himself, this movie asks us to consider just how fundamental the right of free speech, and the freedom of expression, is to society. And yes, it relates to hardcore porn.Without delving too much into the technical aspects of the movie, let me just say that if you watch the Edward Norton courtroom scenes (the first where Larry Flynt himself is the judge, and the last one when he's arguing to the Supreme Court), and the epic speech our protagonist gives on "sex versus death," you are going to start developing opinions. It is going to make you think, and it might challenge your comfort zone. And for all those reasons, this movie is worth every moment of your time... including those painful scenes involving Courtney Love.I still think about this movie sometimes, whenever I hear people arguing about their First Amendment rights. Larry Flynt might not be a knight in shining armor, so to speak, but what he stands for is more than just porn - it's freedom of expression, and Americans have to accept that that doesn't necessarily mean something tame or conservative. It's an important lesson, and a movie that should not be missed.