I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

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

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

"Vincent and Theo" invents one sordid and revolting scene after another and succeeds only in cheapening the legacy of both Vincent and his brother Theo. Though distinctly argumentative and quirky, Vincent was exceedingly well read and well spoken, and had a deeply thoughtful and intellectual rationale for his passionate art, while Theo was an intelligent and personable individual who was successful and highly regarded. Both brothers are ruthlessly sullied and presented as pathetic individuals without any positive attributes in this horrid film. As another reviewer noted, the art works presented in this film are amateur cartoons of the originals, which is certainly not an insignificant detail in a film about a great artist. To understand Vincent and his brother Theo as complex and remarkable individuals, read "Van Gogh: The Life" by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, a brilliantly researched and eloquently written biography, which is like living with Vincent through nearly every day of his entire life, enabled through the many letters preserved, not just between the brothers but among Vincent's entire family and other artists as well. The 1956 film, "Lust for Life", while admittedly quaint, offers a much more accurate biographical sketch in representing the significant life events of Vincent Van Gogh, and more accurately reveals the complexity of the characters. Further, "Lust for Life", uses actual reproductions of all of the original artwork presented, adding up to a very enjoyable and insightful film. "Vincent and Theo" is a ghastly, cheap horror flick that panders with its base vulgarity and is successful only in defiling the complex and fascinating story of Vincent and his beloved brother Theo.

The 1950s biopic about Vincent Van Gogh, "Lust for Life", was an obsessive-compulsive sort of picture. I watched a featurette of the making of this film and also have a huge book featuring all the available known paintings by the artist and was shocked just how exact the film was. Many minor characters in the film were copied EXACTLY from paintings by Van Gogh--such as Dr. Gachet, a sailor who looked a bit like Bluto from the Popeye cartoons and Van Gogh himself (with Kirk Douglas doing crazy things to make himself look more like the artist). Additionally, the filmmakers managed to actually get many of the ORIGINAL paintings by the artist and featured them in the film!! This attention to detail show that it truly was a work of love and money, in many ways, was no object."Vincent & Theo", on the other hand, was a very different sort of film. Director Robert Altman did NOT have a large budget, as the film was originally envisioned as a four-hour TV production, not a 'big' movie. In addition, they did not have access to the original paintings and had art students make copies inspired by Van Gogh's work--and in the making of featurette for "Vincent & Theo" Altman admitted that he really didn't wasn't concerned how close these art students' pictures were! I noticed that many of these copies were very, very poor--and I am very familiar with his work. Instead, this film seemed to care much less about details but tries to emphasize the craziness of both Van Gogh brothers. Kirk Douglas' version of Vincent was INTENSE, whereas Tim Roth's was much sicker and bizarre. Neither is necessarily wrong--as how the very mentally disturbed painter actually acted is only guesswork and based much on his writings.So did I like "Vincent & Theo"? Yes, but I did not love the film like I did the other film. Too many scenes of women urinating and a few ultra-bizarre scenes (such as Vincent painting his face and others as well as eating paint) turned me off. If Van Gogh DID eat paint, drink thinner and paint his face and that of others, then perhaps they were right in showing this--but I really think this was more artistic license than anything else (if it IS true, write me--I'd love to know). Additionally, I would have really loved it if the film HAD been four-hours long like it was originally envisioned, as this film just seemed a bit too short and incomplete (despite many slow portions in the film). Worth seeing but I'd strongly recommend seeing "Lust for Life" first.

Robert Altman's flawed but compelling biography wants to explore the gap dividing creativity and commerce, but outside of a few temper tantrums the troubled relationship between the two Van Gogh siblings never quite finds the elusive balance between the business of art and the art of business. Brother Theo, the dealer whose passion for Vincent's work was equaled only by his inability to find a market for it, is presented in the role of Jekyll to his brother's unstable Hyde, and the tension of their mutual dependence on each other is reflected in a pair of dynamic performances. Both are shown to be equally neurotic and compulsive, but Altman clearly identifies with the under-appreciated artist, introduced in a stunning prologue contrasting his poverty with a multi-million dollar posthumous auction of one of his paintings. Altman can't sustain the same energy over the film's punishing 140-minute length, and his portrait of the artist can only take us as close as the brushstrokes on one of Vincent's canvasses. But if nothing else the unique cinematic style is unlikely to displease the director's many admirers, who at the time had been waiting for him to make a genuine film again.

Vincent & Theo, a 1990 film by director Robert Altman, may be the worst film ever made by a major director who has made a great film. Watching this two hour and twenty minute abomination left me, and my wife, stunned by its wretchedness. From the nonexistent narrative, to the indulgence of every artistic cliché imaginable by screenwriter Julian Mitchell, to possibly the worst soundtrack, by Gabriel Yared, ever used in a film (even worse than the estimably bad Robot Monster!), it's a wonder Altman ever crawled his way out from under the odium of this horrorshow, the nadir of his career- even more so than Popeye a decade before. Yet, his very next film, The Player, somehow relaunched his career. If I can indulge a cliché, maybe it really can be darkest before the dawn! I have still yet to see a successful film made on the life of a real artist, where all the clichés were not utilized. Perhaps the closest to that ideal was Amadeus, save for the fact that its protagonist was not Mozart, but Salieri, and the story was the latter's envy of the former's talent, and the truth was that that whole film was an almost total fiction.This film, however, does not even address the artistic impulse, and the paintings, which is the ONLY reason anyone gives a damn about Vincent Van Gogh, his suffering, or even his brother. Altman states, in the featurette, that what interested him were Vincent's letters to Theo, yet we NEVER get a hint of what they say, only one ridiculously melodramatic scene where a raving Theo bitches at his wife's opening up of the letters.Altman's always been at his best in ensemble pieces, like Nashville, M*A*S*H, The Player, and Gosford Park. He seems utterly adrift in this intense de facto two person stage play where both actors wildly overact, as if they were in a Roger Corman 1960s comic-horror version of Lust For Life, save with British accents, not Dutch.Vincent & Theo is a horrible film, in its own stolid way as bad as Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List, but it seems even worse because Spielberg's never come within a light year of a film as complex as Nashville. There is no progression nor insight into Vincent Van Gogh in this film, nor even his brother. When the brothers die we do not care, nor do we have an iota of insight into Altman's ideas on life and art. Vincent's graffiti that 'I AM THE HOLY SPIRIT. I AM WHOLE IN SPIRIT.' are not only dull and trite, but not given a shred of evidence one way nor the other by Altman. I could go on and on, and list a few dozen other reasons why this is easily Altman's worst film, and a terrible film, period, but hopefully I've earned enough trust with my readership that I can tell them to simply skip this one and watch Lust For Life instead. It's a better film, and more intellectually honest, to boot. OK, exhale!