Best movie of this year hands down!

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

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.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

A US Army base somewhere in the South, late-1940s/early-1950s. A quiet, relatively unimportant base, it is the model of serenity. On this base we have Major Weldon Penderton (played by Marlon Brando), a lecturer in military tactics and strategy. He's married to Leonora (Elizabeth Taylor). There's also Lt. Colonel Morris Langton (Brian Keith) and his wife Alison (Julie Harris). On the surface, everything appears normal and uneventful. However, dig a bit deeper and you'll see that there is no passion in the Pendertons' marriage - they barely tolerate each other. Mrs Penderton is having an affair with Lt. Col. Langton. Mrs Langton has mental issues. Then there's the strange, voyeuristic, repressed Private Williams (Robert Forster)...Directed by John Huston, starring Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor. Three icons of movie making - surely a recipe for success? Well, not entirely.Slow moving, with brief sparks of intrigue. this movie never kicks into a higher gear. It was never entirely boring but never fully engaging either. The movie seemed set up for a profound ending but the ending was reasonably predictable and inevitable.While there are some decent themes, especially involving repression of feelings and desires, these are never explored too thoroughly. Interesting enough, but not overly engaging or satisfying.Solid performances by Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Brian Keith, Julie Harris and Robert Forster. On the negative side we have the character Anacleto, played by Zorro David. An incredibly badly and irritatingly drawn character, badly played with dialogue badly dubbed.

This movie hits all the Southern Gothic marks and then some.Elizabeth Taylor playing a shrill (strike that, she always played shrill) unfaithful wife, and daughter of an Army officer she's always referring to, is in 'Well, Daddy said..." Gotta have a Daddy- obsessed cheater. Bonus points: This is her one and only late career role where she's not playing the craziest person in the room. So there's that.Marlon Brando. He always brought at least a soupçon of crazy to the table, so he's well-placed here. Unfortunately, you can barely understand what he's saying most of the time, so you have to go on the occasional flicker in his wooden expression. This has been interpreted by critics as homosexual desire. (is the naked guy on the horse he keeps seeing real? If he's real, is he really naked? Is he really riding a horse?) Bonus points: he fills out that uniform very well.Julie Harris: according to the script, she's the craziest in the bunch, having chopped off her nipples with garden shears when her baby died. (Only in the South...) But her character seems WAY more sane than...Zorro David as Anacleto, her cray cray Filipino houseboy. He makes Rip Taylor look like... well, I can't come up with anyone. But compared to Anacleto, Rip Taylor is normal and serious. Speaking of which,Brian Keith, who seems to have wandered in from another movie entirely. Something with a good script, directed by Fred Zinnemann or someone similar. He plays Julie Harris's husband, Liz's adulterous honey. The tally: three crazy people, one of whom with a semi-disturbing back story (33 hours in labor, with her houseboy playing doula. Only in the South.) One adulterous affair. One Daddy's girl. One naked guy riding a horse. One of the crazy people beating a horse. (Feel free to turn away, or go to the fridge for a soda during that scene. I wish I had.) Two deaths, on on-screen. One of those was not the horse, otherwise, I'd give this movie an even lower rating.

During the mid 1960s there was a movie called "The Love One" that was billed as "The Movie With Something to Offend Everyone". Released during that same era, "Reflections in a Golden Eye" might well have been billed as "The Movie With Something to Disgust Everyone". That is because there is undoubtedly something in this jaw-dropping movie that will make every single member of the viewing audience squirm in their seats at some point or other, regardless of their age, gender or sexual proclivities. Adultery, homosexuality, sadomasochism, bestiality, voyeurism, self-mutilation, cruelty to animals, murder, those are just a few of the things that go on here. Ostensibly the story takes place on an Army base somewhere in the southern United States. Actually, however, it takes place in some bizarre and perverse parallel universe where Tennessee Williams meets The Twilight Zone. Certainly if the U.S. Army bears even the slightest resemblance to what is depicted in this movie than the country is in a whole lot of trouble.The plot revolves around two Army officers and their respective wives, who are best friends and next-door neighbors on an Army Base. By far the most normal of the four characters is that played by Brian Kieth, who is merely committing adultery with his best friend and next-door neighbors's wife. But hey, can you blame him when his friend's wife is a very-willing Elizabeth Taylor? Besides, Kieth's own wife, who had suffered a miscarriage a few years earlier, hasn't had any use for him since. Played by Julie Harris, Kieth's wife is definitely what a Harley Street Psychiatrist would label, clinically speaking, "Barmy". For her role Liz comes across like a combination of Scarlett O'Hara and Martha from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". It's not very surprising that she is having an affair with her neighbor because her own husband, played by Brando, is a closet case, and she obviously knows it. They're just your typical well-adjusted American couple; she has complete contempt for him while he absolutely loathes her. So, while Liz is having it off with Kieth while Brando is out stalking enlisted men around the Army Base. Watching this movie one can't help wondering, if this is how things are in the Army, what can it possibly be like in the Marine Corps?"Reflections in a Golden Eye" is meant to be an adult drama. However, everything about the film is so extremely over-the-top that the only way to enjoy it at all is to view it as if it were some sort of parody. In that sense it is somewhat reminiscent of "The Fountainhead", another dramatic movie that can only really be enjoyed if it is viewed as a comedy.

A very deep and hard going arty film. In my opinion Brando only made a handful of entertaining films, this ain't one of them. I've been putting off watching this for years, having just viewed it I can see why. Brandos dialogue, what little there is, is muffled and extremely hard to understand. Would he really be a major teaching young officers tactics in a classroom when his dialogue is so illegible, sometimes Brando can be so hard going that you can lose interest in films he is in. The Filipino servant of Julie Harris is just unbelievably annoying especially his voice.the other thing that is jarring is the almost sepia picture- way too arty for its own good.About the best thing about this movie is the gorgeous and sexy Elizabath Taylor.