It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

"Two Bits" was a noticeable change for Al Pacino, casting him as a man getting his grandson (Jerry Barone) to rectify an age-old matter in 1933 Philadelphia in exchange for a chance to go to the movies. Watching the movie, one gets a sense of the poverty characteristic of the Great Depression, but also how people understood that they had to try and go on no matter what. I realize that some people may consider it bad taste - if not unethical - to use the Great Depression for the setting of a nearly magical story, but I wish to assert that the movie did a very impressive job portraying the setting without getting sappy; then again, how could an Al Pacino movie be sappy? I recommend it. Also starring Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.

This movie reminded me of some foreign films I own, low-key films which feature nice storytelling. There are no good guys vs. bad guys, no action, no blood, no sex: just a story of a day back in the Depression era in South Philadelphia.The story centers around a young boy "Gennero" (Jerry Barone) trying to raise "two bits" (25 cents) to see a movie. It features his dying grandfather, played nicely by Al Pacino. Along the way the 12-year-old encounters interesting people and events. Pacino dishes out the usual grandfatherly advice and well meaning-but-on-Biblical theology ("God puts a brick on your house in heaven every time you do a good deed and he takes one away when you are bad.") Some have criticized Pacino for taking this role. I guess they want him to be a cop in every film. Well, he's a great actor and shows his diversified talents well in here. Whatever.....this film is loaded with charm and a nice story that's like a good book: hard to put down once you start. At 84 minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome, either. Even though there is little profanity, I would not recommend this as family fare because the film touches on a disturbing doctor and his wife.Overall, I really enjoyed this movie and glad to see it's out on DVD now, too.

This movie was passably interesting but I found the readers' comments even more interesting. Obviously both readers, writer, director, et al. are of today's generation of takers who don't have the least idea about what life was life in those terrible days. The central figure, a 12 year old boy who wants to go to the movies, is repeatedly seen trying to cadge a quarter from his dying grandfather.Out of compassion, a grocer who is overextended giving credit to his impoverished neighbors and forgives their small thefts, gives the kid a nickel for a job the kid never does. A compassionate doctor, who himself is nearly as bad off financially as his patients, gives the kid a dime for a job the kid never does. Finally the kid badgers his mother into giving him her last dime for attending to his grandfather's dying wish. This the kid does, in a really great scene. But he gets to the theater too late for the twenty five cents early admission price. Now the price is fifty cents, a seemingly hopeless sum.This was an absurd price for a movie ticket in those days. I recall ten or fifteen cents for a kid and two bits for adults. But fifty cents then was a good pay for a day's hard work by a man. As Steinbeck wrote of those days regarding a California farmer's view of fair wages: "A red is any son of a bitch who wants five cents an hour when I'm paying four." I got forty cents per month per customer for getting up at 4:00 am delivering newspapers door to door, and had to pay the company for the papers whether the customer paid me or not.Back to the movie -- Then the grandfather dies and, miraculously, the kid finds a quarter in the dirt nearby. And off he goes to the theater, splurging the whole fifty cents. Not a penny's worth of character development here, although the opportunity to do so was palpable. What a message to send the spoiled brats of today who seem to think they have a God-given right to live off of their parents and grandparents until the old folks die. When that happens we're going to have a hell of a depression. Which we need like a hole in the head. Today homeless people are living in parks and riverside camps and in alleyways behind restaurant dumpsters in the same terrible conditions and nearly the numbers we had during the depression era. The only difference is the modern stainless steel shopping carts they commandeer to move their possessions. But nobody seems to bother counting them, much less doing anything about their plight. We just don't want to see them and so, miraculously, they aren't there. This play could have been redeemed if the kid had foregone his utterly selfish obsession to go to the movie, and had paid the doctor and the grocer the unearned 15 cents they had given him, and had given his mother back her dime plus the two bits he "inherited" from his grandfather. Or would that have been a politically incorrect message to send to the children of today? Twelve year is not by any means too young for a child to be aware of the economic burdens parents have today, and certainly wasn't the case back in the thirties. I vividly remember when I was about 12 and spent a summer on my grandfather's ranch -- which he had lost long before to the mortgage holder who let him and grandma live there until he died on the land he and his parents had owned for nearly a century. He taught me how to play poker, so well in fact that by the time my vacation was over, I had a pretty fair stack of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters which I kept stacked on the kitchen table with the sugar bowl and salt and pepper shakers.I really felt bad about taking the money -- although God knows the old man had lost his ranch in large part because of his gambling and hell-raising youth -- and so when my folks picked me up I "forgot" my small hoard of possibly three-four dollars, which was big money to me too. Later I got a letter from my grandmother noting my gesture, but letting me know that my grandfather was deeply hurt because a 12 year old kid had felt sorry for him.My grandfather taught me to play a pretty good game of poker too, which I put to good use in the Army and later when I had to play "poker" with the insurance companies for much higher stakes. Like the man used to sing, "You've got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em."Anyhow, TWO BITS was a big disappointment to me for these reasons. Obviously, I'm not at all happy with the state of affairs in our society these days. If you want more lectures along these lines, see our website (www.networkcentralca.net) based on the 1976 blockbuster movie NETWORK where Paddy Chayefski -- also a Depression era child -- famously satirized and forecast the sorry state of affairs of our news media and economy. Some day a more vital culture, whether Chinese or Mexican or Muslim, is going to eat us alive, and if you are around then and don't know why, remember TWO BITS.Lew Warden

I tend to be a sucker for coming-of-age dramas like these, and this is one of the good ones. The premise of a boy wanting to accumulate 25 cents to go to the movies is simple but engaging and effective. Modern day viewers might look at his quest as stupid and redundant, but that's easy to say when you have enough money to go the movies every weekend. To this little boy, it's his dream to go to the new local cinema on opening day. Plus, in the days of the depression, the cinema meant much more than it does now. Nowadays, people don't respect the institution. You see people put their feet up on the chairs in front of them, throw popcorn at the screen, shamelessly talk amongst themselves and to give a thoroughly modern example, let their cell phones ring. I think it was Gene Siskel, who said the most beautiful sight is seeing a movie audience as the screen shines over them and their eyes are glued to the screen. Cinema just had that magical feeling to people. So though I was born five decades later, I was still able to put myself in the main character's shoes. Joseph Stefano, known mostly for his screenplay for "Psycho," wrote this nice character-driven drama that took me on a journey. Of course, that's also thanks to the child actor who played the main character. He has a certain authenticity to him that not all child actors have. If a child actor can say his lines like he means them and deliver emotions without dialogue, he's doing a good-enough job. Not only that, but he holds his own opposite the brilliant Al Pacino. Like always, Pacino gives a powerful performance, and I felt the character he played was different and unique. This time he's not a gangster or a cop. Though he has a supporting role, he makes his screen time memorable. Mary Elizabeth (I'm not gonna attempt to say her last name) is great as well. The situations our protagonist gets into are sometimes funny, sometimes sad. As trivial as his quest to get 25 cents may seem, I wanted him to accomplish it. The ending is sad, though not unexpected. Mainly, it's the richly developed characters and their interactions that make this a solid film. My score: 8 (out of 10)