Rating: 
Summary: Gorgeously surreal, one-of-a-kind tour de force
Review: With the average Hollywood movie, you can usually predict the entire plot, themes, and character development (or lack thereof) after the first 10 minutes, and the spend the rest of the movie waiting for it all to come true. Watching the first 10 minutes of "Punch-Drunk Love," I didn't have the slightest clue about WHAT was going to happen to WHO or WHY---all I knew was this was by far the best (most original, imaginative, and daring) damn American film to come out in years. It never stopped surprising, confounding, and challenging me as a viewer; just when I started to think I knew what was coming next, WHACK! Something totally different happens, and it all comes to sort of make "sense" within its own surreal yet extremely-real, context. Unlike a lot of art films that also take a lot of chances aesthetically, PDL is always absorbing, engrossing, and exhilarating to watch, even if there are a lot of things that go over your head---perfect for repeated viewings!
Rating: 
Summary: Love PUNCH DRUNK
Review: I don't understand why movies like PUNCH DRUNK LOVE are not cherished more at award time. It's a character film. The end doesn't fizzle out. Sandler's character starts at point A and ends at point Z. He experiences a change - love has come into his life. He realizes he's a good person. He hated himself at the beginning. There may not be a lot of special effects or big explosions (the signal in most American films that the ending of the film is coming), but PUNCH DRUNK LOVE is not like that. It's a small movie. It's about Barry Egan and Lena Leonard, two weird souls who find each other and accept each other's weirdness. The "bad guys" are Utah phone sex thugs. A harmonium (a small piano-like organ) dropped in the street outside his office is a symbol of the changes that are in store for Barry Egan. I liked PUNCH DRUNK LOVE a lot. Adam Sandler is very good in it. It's nice to see Emily Watson, who is very sweet as Lena. Director/writer Paul Thomas Anderson has made three films that I like very much. I'm a fan.
Rating: 
Summary: Huh? Adam Sandler kept me watching, only because of him
Review: So I am watching this movie and thinking the direction is pretty weird, but I am sure some of you indie lovers, love this weird stuff. I am more of a blockbuster movie type of gal although I feel that I do know how to appreciate a good indie. This movie does not qualify on my list of good indies, maybe worst indies would be more like it. The movie is so slow, the story is so-so and the end makes you feel like you wasted your freaking time. Adam Sandler is great as always, I love him and thatw as the only reason why I rented this picture. He didn't cut it enough to make this a god movie. Bottom line: If you like his other films, don't rent this just because of that reason. This is totally something different. Like people reviewing this movie (who liked it) said, Magnolia is just like this. I hated that and didn't like this.
Rating:
Summary: Sledgehammer love! Another winner from P.T. Anderson...
Review: I loved this 95-minute "exploration" about a "man-child" who finds "intoxicating" love for the first time. What happens if you're a boy (Adam Sandler) - in a man's body - with no confidence? Sandler plays Barry Egan. He hates himself, he feels like a loser and he doesn't know why. He cries for no reason. His heart is big, his seven sisters love him, but they make fun of him. No one understands him. Of course they don't. He smashes window and walls, tears up a rest room and stocks up on pudding to cash in on a marketing promotion flaw. Is he also a wacko? But then a miracle. He meets a courageous and perhaps foolish girl who likes the very things he hates about himself. Love makes him so powerful, his life suddenly has a purpose. It's like winning the lottery. This is about the only thing "simple" about the so-called "storyline" of Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love," a film I found bizarre and sweet - perhaps too artsy for its own good - yet oddly uplifting and satisfying. When Sandler's Barry Egan says Emily Watson's character is so pretty that he wants to "smash her face with a sledgehammer," it sounds better in the movie than on paper. It's funny and it works. If you're a child, it impossible to find the "right words" to express the intensity of "punch-drunk love." I don't blame people who hated this film. It would be snobby to say some people "just won't get it." There's no point lying. "Punch-Drunk Love" is a film that requires properly managed expectations. Part of the problem (and genius) is Anderson's decision to cast Adam Sandler himself. Sandler is a good actor here, but he doesn't do anything spectacular. The best way to avoid feeling cheated is to push everything you know about Sandler out of your mind. Pretend you're seeing him for the first time. Sandler has teased his violent persona in previous over-the-top comedies, but in "Punch-Drunk Love," writer-director Anderson has channeled this tortured "self-hatred" act into something that isn't supposed to be funny. He explores what might happen - if such a person fell in love - for the FIRST time. Equally maddening to some, Anderson doesn't use conventional words and images to "articulate" the mysteries of love. He makes us see everything through the eyes of a loser who's never experienced them. We see splashes of color and hear "high-as-a-kite" music that mirrors his euphoria. Anderson doesn't spell everything out in deep dialogue, because in real relationships, we don't talk about everything. Words come close, but they're rarely "dead-on" about what we're really feeling. "Punch-Drunk Love" works best as a "what if?" romance involving a man who's emotionally stunted. I don't know if a woman like Emily Watson's character exists. I don't demand to know why she chases Sandler because I feel I'm watching everything through the eyes of Sandler's Barry Egan. This is a story about the boy, not the girl. Watson appears so radiant to Sandler's character that he feels she's looking right through him, making things easier. This is all that matters to him. P. T. Anderson is always offbeat, but I didn't expect him to be so sadistically charming. Unlike the pessimism of his previous films, this effort brims with optimism, delivering abstract ideas without using a chalkboard. Emily Watson gets the last line in the film and some people feel short-changed by it (I won't give it away). But to me, it's terrific. It's not a "happily ever after" prediction. Instead, it's an open-ended, three-word expression of hope, acknowledging obstacles ahead without listing 'em. It comes closer to the giddy feelings mirroring the complexities of love as we really know them, without getting gushy. Why do we "love" at all? Is it necessary? "Punch-Drunk Love" is an American original. Calling it a "romantic-comedy" is very misleading.
Rating: 
Summary: Adam Sandler's idea of drama is similar to comedy
Review: For a 95 minute movie, I had a lot of trouble sitting through it. It moves at a slow pace with long pauses in dialogue. The music is loud and overshadows the dialogue with an annoying array for clinking and banging. Although this was supposed to be a breakthrough role in which Adam Sandler evolves to drama, it is shown that he can only do one thing to call it acting- yell. Similar to Happy Gilmore and Waterboy, he goes on a temper tantrum of yelling and breaking items. His love interest is a nosy person who asks why Adam Sandler's character, Barry, does the things he does. The sister who sets Barry up with Emily Watson's character in the movie is annoying, often asks about why he is acting so strange, before proving that the reason for this is because she is agrivating and the being neurotic runs in the family. The idea of the plot is stupid, to focus around a phone sex hotline and a business of selling plungers. I think Adam Sandler focus is yelling in comedies, not dramas.
Rating:
Summary: Punch Drunk Studio
Review: It looks like it's going to be an art movie when it begins, and then maybe a slick Cohen flick, but it turns out to be neither.
While there are a couple of cute scenes, it's mostly a painful flick to sit through. Save your money and time.
Rating:
Summary: Punch Drunk Viewers
Review: Give Adam Sandler extra credit for trying to broaden his range with Punch Drunk Love. The key word there is "trying", because Sandler puts more effort into his performance here than he did in all his previous films combined. That's not exactly a difficult task, since Sandler is responsible for one the laziest movies ever made ("Big Daddy"). Paul Thomas Anderson was smart enough to see a running theme in Sandler's characters and attempt to show the flipside of that character - the weeping clown, if you will. That Sandler was willing to reverse his persona so readily certainly deserves admiration. Critics, as a collective, despise Sandler. And that's probably because they didn't follow his work from the beginning of his career, when he released a brilliant comedy album ("They're All Gonna Laugh at You") and did the "Denise Show" sketch, probably the best SNL bit of the past 15 years. If Sandler's efforts don't translate as well to full-length movies, it doesn't mean he isn't a gifted performer. Misguided, maybe. But anyone with a brain knows he's a talented performer. Unfortunately, Punch Drunk Love ends up doing him a huge disservice. It's a good concept wasted. The Tragic Sandler featured here is stuck in a film that has myriad problems. There's no real plot to speak of. The musical score is grating and obnoxious. And, worst of all, it offers no reason for its lead characters (Sandler and Emily Watson) to fall in love with one another. All of that can be blamed on Anderson, who still owes the world for the crime that was Magnolia. Anderson cuts the running time in half here, yet Punch Drunk Love still feels three hours long. You keep waiting for the film to settle down and establish some kind of rhythm of its own, but it never does. It instead exists as a series of tangentially related bursts of oddness. That may work for a Radiohead record, but movie audiences usually need (and deserve) something in the way of structure. Sandler's character Barry Egan is also poorly written. He acts irrationally, which is realistic enough. The problem is that he just doesn't seem like a real person. Sandler makes the mistake of giving Egan a babyish, almost mentally crippled way of speaking, and his violent behavior only makes him a curiosity, not a person with identify with or care about. Other characters only exist to puzzle over why Barry acts the way he does. But it's hard to imagine that many people would continue asking about someone who's so clearly a lost cause. Punch Drunk Love continues a major losing streak for Anderson, who was given too much directorial leeway before he deserved it. Anderson has a true gift for annoying viewers. One scene in Punch Drunk Love features Egan's sister berating him with the score screeching away in the background. It's almost impossible to tolerate, which is par for the course these days with Anderson's films. Punch Drunk Love, like Magnolia, seems designed only to appeal to the director himself and no one else. It's sad, because in terms of photography this is one of the most beautiful films of the past year. But Anderson needs to find some substance beneath his style. Too bad for Sandler. (It's worth noting that if you're looking for the traditional wacky Sandler movie, you should avoid Punch Drunk Love at all costs. It isn't funny at all. Then again, neither was Mr. Deeds.)
Rating:
Summary: Not for everyone
Review: I'm not an Adam Sandler fan at all, but I am huge fan of both Magnolia and Boogie Nights! That's why my experience with this movie was so weird for me. I loved Adam Sandler in the movie but, in the end, the movie was totally let down by the story. Adam Sandler plays Barry Egan, a self employed business man who seems to be socially challenged (as well as fashion challenged) with 7 sisters and no brothers. It seems that he has been teased all of his life by his sisters and, as a result of this endless torment, he has depression issues as well as connection issues. Feeling lonely and vulnerable one night, he calls a sex line for some conversation and eventual release. Unfortunately for him, the sex line is run by a guy who black mails and extorts money from his "more well off" customers by threatening to reveal their "perverted" calls to the people around them (wives, girlfriends and business colleges). Barry, who seems to be a broken man; week and lifeless, meets a young lady named Lena Leonard, played by Emily Watson, through the help of one of his sisters. Emily becomes the woman of his dreams! Barry finds himself trying to win over Lena and at the same time hide from her the sex call debacle and to clear up any embarrassing things that his sisters might have said to her about him. It turns out that Lena (who is a little quirky herself) is the ideal woman for him and gives him a strength that he has never known. She is the catalyst that propels him from his inner prison. In theory this movie has allot to work with to make a great dark comedy, but in the end, it falls short. Adam Sandler really plays himself in this movie, but with a more serious approach, and I really enjoyed his performance. What I didn't like in this movie was some of the "artsy visuals" that were thrown in. For example, I'm still trying to figure out why a van filled with shady looking characters pull up, screeching, to his work parking lot and drop off a miniature piano!? In Magnolia these weird visuals worked, like in the end when it started to rain frogs. This represented one of the biblical plagues on man that God would put upon us when we are at our worst. I don't get the miniature piano reference, except they needed a way to introduce the piano because he (Adam Sandler) pays so much attention to it through out the movie. A garage sale purchase would have sufficed! Also, the Superbit release is a little bit of a mystery to me. The colors and sounds didn't seem, to me, to need a premium release. This is a movie that has some entertaining moments due to a great collection of actors but the story is this movies down fall and I if you are a fan of these guys and have enjoyed their other projects and really feel a need to see it, rent it!
Rating:
Summary: the flip side to Adam Sandler's comedy
Review: Barry Egan is like taking Sandler's regular characters and giving him a real-life perspective, where it's not always funny and things don't always work out. The pathos Sandler puts into this character is amazing. Barry has 7 sisters, who nag him constantly and put him down, even while he is at work. His contribution to most conversations is a dazed "I don't know" and more often "I'm sorry." He expresses himself with fits of rage, which include breaking glass with his bare fists. Despite so many sisters and brothers-in-law (one whom seems to genuinely like and respect Barry, even if his wife does not), Barry is very lonely. One night he calls a 900 number just to talk to a girl named Georgia -- she tries to turn the conversation sexual but Barry does not even want that. He just wants to talk. Around this time, he meets Lina on the sidewalk. Lina is ironically a friend of his most nagging sister's, whom he refused to meet on the grounds that it was uncomfortable and he did not want to. For once, Barry has a relationship in which he wants to participate. However, Georgia is now calling Barry up, extorting and blackmailing him, and sending goons out to threaten him. Barry is too ineffectual to call the police, and does not want to wreck what has started with Lina. Things spiral downhill at an amazing speed till Barry stops being a victim.(He always wears the same suit throughout the entire film. When asked why did he dress up, does he think he is a big shot, by his sister, he says "I don't know.") Barry is like so many people we have met magnified many times over. This is a very good film that showcases Sandler's range, much wider than anyone who has seen his previous (and indeed hilarious) work may expect and be pleasantly surprised by it. I hope he will do a film like this more often in addition to the comedy!
Rating:
Summary: Ok...
Review: My girlfriend and I sat through this movie together, and she HATED it. While to me, it's one of the tops! The story was written perfectly, and this movie does have some great "art" in it. Adam Sandler did a great job playing the part. The movie does have a bunch of 'blank' spots - but they are great 'blank' spots that are just little voids that make the great story.
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