Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Enough to Watch, But...
Review: Summary:
Vincent "Vinny" T. Webb (Nick Nolte; Young Vinnie Webb - Shawn Hatosy) is an alcoholic with a guilty conscience. Years ago he and his best friend, Lyle Carter (Jeff Bridges; Young Lyle Carter - Liam Waite), rigged some horse races with the help of Lyle's now wife, Rosie (Sharon Stone; Young Rosie - Kimberly Williams (I)). But rigging the races isn't what the guilty conscience is from. The racing commissioner (Albert Finney) caught on to what they were doing. So the three friends set him up; Rosie had sex with him while Vinny took pictures. They then used the pictures to get him to keep quiet while they won their final race. After the last race, Rosie took off with Lyle, even though Vinny wanted to marry her. Vinny has kept the pictures for roughly 20 years as a means of controlling Lyle. Lyle went on to make something of himself, becoming quite wealthy and continuing to participate in horse racing. He even lives in Kentucky now, near the location of the Kentucky Derby. He married Rosie who has developed a love for horses, especially the one the story is named after - Simpatico. Whenever Vinny needs anything, he calls up Lyle and, because Vinny still has the evidence from their crime so many years ago, Lyle has to concede to whatever Vinny wants. Well, that's all just the backstory, which takes the whole movie to figure out. The movie actually begins when (this is my interpretation) Vinny can't take the guilt anymore and decides to play his hand by giving the pictures to someone (he tries to give them to the racing commissioner to clear his name and to Rosie, but both refuse). To clear the way for him to get them to Rosie he tricks Lyle to fly out to California saying he is in trouble. He isn't really but ends up stealing Lyle's wallet, return flight pass, and cash and heading to Kentucky to try to get rid of the pictures. Once Lyle realizes what has happened he tries to send Vinny's current love interest, Cecilia (Catherine Keener), after him, but the realization of the havoc Vinny is likely to cause gets to him (again, my interpretation) and Lyle and Vinny temporarily switch roles with Vinny becoming the business man and Lyle the drunk. Now everyone involved has to come to terms with the past and the future that has resulted from it. My Comments:
I'd like to meet Nick Nolte one day, perhaps follow him around and see what he is really like. Has he ever played a role where he was sober the whole time? I mean, the guy just seems to get typecast into the role of a drunk in every move he is in. Anyway, the acting in this movie is okay. So, too, is the cinematography. Nick Nolte and Jeff Bridges were pretty good, and so were all of the young counterparts and the racing commissioner. However, I didn't like the two women leads, - Sharon Stone and Catherine Keener. I think Catherine Keener was more convincing than Sharon Stone, but perhaps the reason I didn't like either of them that much wasn't so because there acting was so poor (I don't really think it was all that great), but because they were trying to play characters that just weren't working. Catherine was trying play a naive woman from California and Sharon was playing an embittered wife who was still fixated on a trick from 25-30 years ago. This leads to the biggest problem I saw with the movie - the story. I guess it's kind of credible, but a major stretch. I wouldn't really know if people do these kinds of things; I've never done anything like it. But the responses of the main characters to the crime were, I don't know, not fitting. I guess theoretically it's possible that Vinny would take to drinking and not make anything of his life, same too for Rosie. But I doubt it. After 30 years or so you'd think people would get over it. Also, Lyle's response to Vinny heading to Kentucky made no sense either. I guess he was thinking that he was going to lose everything, but instead of trying to go to Kentucky to stop him, he gets sloshed and tries to hide from the world. It just didn't make any sense. Overall, the movie is kind of interesting just because all of the characters are screwed up, but the unconvincing storyline kind of ruins the movie. One final thing - what's the big deal with the Kentucky Derby? I live less than 100 miles from where it takes place and everyone I talk to (definitely a biased sample, I recognize that) seems to think that it's kind of silly. Why all the mystique about it in the movie? I've never been and have no intention of going. Anyway, this is one that you could miss and not feel bad about having done so. It definitely didn't leave a lasting impression on me and unless someone asks me about it, I highly doubt I'll be talking about it again.
Rating:
Summary: Strange
Review: Summary:
Vincent "Vinny" T. Webb (Nick Nolte; Young Vinnie Webb - Shawn Hatosy) is an alcoholic with a guilty conscience. Years ago he and his best friend, Lyle Carter (Jeff Bridges; Young Lyle Carter - Liam Waite), rigged some horse races with the help of Lyle's now wife, Rosie (Sharon Stone; Young Rosie - Kimberly Williams (I)). But rigging the races isn't what the guilty conscience is from. The racing commissioner (Albert Finney) caught on to what they were doing. So the three friends set him up; Rosie had sex with him while Vinny took pictures. They then used the pictures to get him to keep quiet while they won their final race. After the last race, Rosie took off with Lyle, even though Vinny wanted to marry her. Vinny has kept the pictures for roughly 20 years as a means of controlling Lyle. Lyle went on to make something of himself, becoming quite wealthy and continuing to participate in horse racing. He even lives in Kentucky now, near the location of the Kentucky Derby. He married Rosie who has developed a love for horses, especially the one the story is named after - Simpatico. Whenever Vinny needs anything, he calls up Lyle and, because Vinny still has the evidence from their crime so many years ago, Lyle has to concede to whatever Vinny wants. Well, that's all just the backstory, which takes the whole movie to figure out. The movie actually begins when (this is my interpretation) Vinny can't take the guilt anymore and decides to play his hand by giving the pictures to someone (he tries to give them to the racing commissioner to clear his name and to Rosie, but both refuse). To clear the way for him to get them to Rosie he tricks Lyle to fly out to California saying he is in trouble. He isn't really but ends up stealing Lyle's wallet, return flight pass, and cash and heading to Kentucky to try to get rid of the pictures. Once Lyle realizes what has happened he tries to send Vinny's current love interest, Cecilia (Catherine Keener), after him, but the realization of the havoc Vinny is likely to cause gets to him (again, my interpretation) and Lyle and Vinny temporarily switch roles with Vinny becoming the business man and Lyle the drunk. Now everyone involved has to come to terms with the past and the future that has resulted from it. My Comments:
I'd like to meet Nick Nolte one day, perhaps follow him around and see what he is really like. Has he ever played a role where he was sober the whole time? I mean, the guy just seems to get typecast into the role of a drunk in every move he is in. Anyway, the acting in this movie is okay. So, too, is the cinematography. Nick Nolte and Jeff Bridges were pretty good, and so were all of the young counterparts and the racing commissioner. However, I didn't like the two women leads, - Sharon Stone and Catherine Keener. I think Catherine Keener was more convincing than Sharon Stone, but perhaps the reason I didn't like either of them that much wasn't so because there acting was so poor (I don't really think it was all that great), but because they were trying to play characters that just weren't working. Catherine was trying play a naive woman from California and Sharon was playing an embittered wife who was still fixated on a trick from 25-30 years ago. This leads to the biggest problem I saw with the movie - the story. I guess it's kind of credible, but a major stretch. I wouldn't really know if people do these kinds of things; I've never done anything like it. But the responses of the main characters to the crime were, I don't know, not fitting. I guess theoretically it's possible that Vinny would take to drinking and not make anything of his life, same too for Rosie. But I doubt it. After 30 years or so you'd think people would get over it. Also, Lyle's response to Vinny heading to Kentucky made no sense either. I guess he was thinking that he was going to lose everything, but instead of trying to go to Kentucky to stop him, he gets sloshed and tries to hide from the world. It just didn't make any sense. Overall, the movie is kind of interesting just because all of the characters are screwed up, but the unconvincing storyline kind of ruins the movie. One final thing - what's the big deal with the Kentucky Derby? I live less than 100 miles from where it takes place and everyone I talk to (definitely a biased sample, I recognize that) seems to think that it's kind of silly. Why all the mystique about it in the movie? I've never been and have no intention of going. Anyway, this is one that you could miss and not feel bad about having done so. It definitely didn't leave a lasting impression on me and unless someone asks me about it, I highly doubt I'll be talking about it again.
Rating: 
Summary: good actors bad movie
Review: The main problem here seems to be that the central event in the story, the scam , just isnt interesting, its certainly hard to beleive in the characters and their interrelationship based on this event, from there it just falls apart.
Basically boring and very missable.
Rating:
Summary: one the worst movies I ever seen (zero stars!)
Review: The movie sucks big time. The script is a fluff. All the characters behave irrationally. Motivations are totally artificial. Poor Sharon looks like she is 20 years older than she really is. Keener must have been in desperate need of money to get in to this after her stellar perfomances in ''Living in oblivion'' and ''Being John Malkovich''.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Enough to Watch, But...
Review: The plot and the characters become incomprehensible about midway through the film. About three quarters of the way through, I was thinking, "What is the point of this movie?" Then, for no particular reason, Sharon Stone shoots a horse (a big "what the...?" moment). Finally, the ending left me with an "I don't get it" feeling. Nolte and Bridges made the film watchable and interesting for a while. But when Bridges' character suddenly changes his personality and starts acting just like Nolte's character for no good reason (I guess it was supposed to have some deep symbolic meaning, but it means nothing when it's totally arbitrary and illogical and unbelievable given the premises of the story), I thought it might be time to give up on Simpatico and try another DVD. I should have.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Enough to Watch, But...
Review: The plot and the characters become incomprehensible about midway through the film. About three quarters of the way through, I was thinking, "What is the point of this movie?" Then, for no particular reason, Sharon Stone shoots a horse (a big "what the...?" moment). Finally, the ending left me with an "I don't get it" feeling. Nolte and Bridges made the film watchable and interesting for a while. But when Bridges' character suddenly changes his personality and starts acting just like Nolte's character for no good reason (I guess it was supposed to have some deep symbolic meaning, but it means nothing when it's totally arbitrary and illogical and unbelievable given the premises of the story), I thought it might be time to give up on Simpatico and try another DVD. I should have.
Rating:
Summary: completely lost
Review: This is a movie in which I could not understand what they wanted to convey and what the movie meant. The storyline is weak. The frequent cutting to flashbacks was irritating but atleast kept me guessing about what the story was about for the intial portions of the movie. The cast is star studded but their performances is average. The only interesting part of the movie was the dialogues of Simms and the name Altogether a very weak and mediocre movie in my opinion
Rating:
Summary: A tragic waste of talent
Review: This is one of those stories that prove that bankable stars can't save a bad script. The film was a box office disaster, yanked after two weeks in theaters and grossing less than one million dollars. The story, based on a Sam Shepard play, is a character study of characters so totally bereft that it is impossible to care. Vinnie (Nick Nolte), Carter (Jeff Bridges) and Rosie (Sharon Stone) ran a betting scam on horseracing about twenty years ago that included blackmail. Carter is now a successful horse breeder and Rosie is his wife. Vinnie is a broken down drunk who is threatening to expose the scheme for reasons clear only to him. The story sputters along after that with all sorts of character development and flashbacks. The more we learn about these three, the more we want the movie to end. When it finally does end, the final resolution is so ridiculous and unsatisfying that we are left wondering what the point was. The acting was up to the standard one might expect, with all three major stars delivering strong performances. However, the story was so irrational and boring that it didn't make a bit of difference. There is not a lot about the film that is worth recommending. I rated it a 3/10. Unless you are a devotee of one of the three stars, you probably will want to spend your time and money on something more entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Why was this movie made??
Review: This movie is a perfect example why a play should NEVER be made into a movie. I have to say that there have been a few exceptions to the rule, "Steel Magnolias" being one. "Simpatico" with it's stellar cast could have been a good film, but it fell flat in its celuloid face in this BORING snorefest. I could not have cared less about anyone in this jumbled-up mess. Avoid this like the plague.
Rating:
Summary: Great Performanc by LLoyd Catlett in an otherwise Lousy Film
Review: This one stars a very derelict looking Nick Nolte, a handsome Brook's Brothers suited Jeff Bridges and a very young looking Sharon Stone. The story is about three friends that were involved in fixing horse races twenty-five years ago, on the periphery of organized crime. They have some deep, dark secret from those days. The Nick Nolte character is letting the secret leak out. He seems to be trying to sell some allegedly pornographic pictures that are somehow connected to their secret. When his old partner Jeff Bridges finds out what he's been doing, he goes on the warpath. The problem is we have no idea what this is about or what's going on. Nick Nolte is too drunk and too disheveled to believe. Jeff Bridges is the opposite; we have too hard a time believing his character was ever a fixer. The one and only strong point in the movie is the race track mobster played by Loyd Catlett. He is evilly charismatic. Nick Nolte makes an attempt to sell the alleged pornographic photos to him. Catlett's character is totally cool and on top of his game. He's so sharp while acting cool that he's riveting. He's playing his end of the game like a grandmaster. You really can't wait to see how he plays his side of the game. Unfortunately, his was a wasted performance, because the rest of the movie is hopeless, so bad, it should never have been brought to screen. The presence of three major stars couldn't salvage it. Sam Shepard, normally a great screenwriter, should be ashamed of this one; it's a stinker.
| 
