A Major Disappointment

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The acting in this movie is really good.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Everyone tries awfully hard to breath some life into this bad script. In a nutshell, the main character is unsure of his future. All his friends are off to college while he hasn't a clue where to go. His only talents are reciting some bad poetry and many dalliances. There are no endearing characters. The lead character, Phoenix, is down-right unlikeable and I was only wishing that when he was getting his face pounded in one scene that it could have continued a little longer. After all the ordeal, does the character have any greater personal insight? Nope. Still directionless as he lies to his father in the closing scene. Interesting only in seeing some familiar actors in their early days. Plenty of over-acting by Phoenix through-out.

This movie is a gem. It's funny and highly enjoyable. Yes, River's character is a bit of a jerk, but they cleverly added something to his character, he's a poet. It's the only deep thing about him that makes him seem human. Something that really makes Jimmy unlikable is that he thinks with his dick. but I really admire him because once he made up his mind about doing something, he did whatever he could to make it happen. The one thing that made absolutely no sense though, was the fact that he was best friends with a guy who was afraid of girls, what the hell did they have in common? The quote at the very beginning saying that our goal is to realize that we have always been where we ought to be, completely epitomizes how Jimmy was supposed to go to business school like his father had wanted him to, the ending also goes along with this very well. Jimmy Reardon was an extremely original character, I don't think we've seen one like him before or since. God Bless William Richert.

I bought this film recently and before i saw it, i read the user comments and I am shocked about the rating it has gotten! I love this film so much, I felt like I knew the characters! The film just seemed so real and we thought out. It clearly isn't the greatest film in the world etc but it sure as hell doesn't deserve to get the rating everyone else on this site has given it. I loved the film so much. It seems like an awesome film and people obviously don't care about it enough to appreciate it. The acting was great and so was the direction. I cannot say one bad word against the film. Not one bad word. All i have to say is praise. I think everyone should give this film a chance and see how good it actually is!

Something truly rare in film: a disaster on every level. River Phoenix takes himself way too seriously in the title role of a hipster-doofus poet on the night everyone supposedly discovers what a genius he is. It's a film chock full of bad acting, bad writing, bad staging, and the most asinine, sanctimonious poetry ever heard. It makes Mike Myers' parody in So I Married an Axe Murderer sound like William Shakespeare. Of course, since River and Ione Skye are so good-looking, we're supposed to take them seriously. To paraphrase Heathers, it's teen-angst you-know-what. Don't fall for it. I admonish you all to leave in the 59-cent bin of your local video store where it belongs.