Rating: 
Summary: Look out for those Z-Rays!
Review: The title of the movie sounds puerile enough. Who and what is a caveman's Valentine, anyway? However, this movie is anything but facetious or shallow. Astounding in its depth and the manner in which it treats certain subjects with sensitivity, I would describe this movie, which is based on a novel of the same name by George Dawes Green, as nothing short of genius.
Romulus Ledbetter (Samuel L. Jackson) is a schizophrenic former musician who renounced middle-class life to live in a rocky enclosure in Manhattan's Inwood Park. One cold Valentine's Day, driven by voices and subliminal messages he finds on his TV set (That's the surreal bit: He gets to watch TV even though there's nothing in the cave for it to be plugged into), he ventures outside to find the dead body of 20-year-old Scotty Gales. Romulus believes this to be the work of an omniscient and evil mastermind by the name of Cornelius Gould Stuyvesant who happens to live in the Chrysler Building.
Romulus believes it to be his moral and divine duty to track down the murderer of Scotty Gales and thus his adventure begins.
We the audience are offered glimpses into the former life of Romulus; his musical education at Juilliard, his wife, his daughter now grown up and with the police force, and his decline into insanity. This movie deals sensitively with the issue of homelessness, mental illness and the emotional turmoil that families of the mentally ill go through. Romulus' family is torn between helping him and rejecting him for his non-acceptance of their lifestyle, values and middle-class sensibilities.
We catch glimpses too of Romulus' version of reality; of the voices and visions that haunt him, of the moth-seraphs that dwell in his head, of the manifestation of his wife, also his Muse, each time he sits before a piano and quakes. We see, in two scenes, his musical genius and his emotional involvement with his music.
As the plot thickens, we see that the main suspect is not the enigmatic Stuyvesant but an artist named David Leppenraub, who had used Scotty Gates as a nude model on several occasions. Romulus seeks to entrap and expose Leppenraub as the killer, but matters are not as simple as one thinks.
'The Caveman's Valentine' is a detective drama, a psychological thriller and a character study all rolled into one, and brought to a state of high polish by the efforts of Samuel L. Jackson and Kasi Lemmons.
No one could have made Romulus Ledbetter as real and alive as Samuel L. Jackson did. For his performance alone, I would rate the movie 5 stars out of 5. And Miss Kasi Lemmons? I'd give her a standing ovation for outstanding directorial work.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Acting, but Not Believable
Review: There are some very effective moments in this strange story of a homeless man who solves a grisly murder, but they are due to the fine acting of Samuel L. Jackson in the lead role. His part - that of a Julliard trained (!) schizophrenic homeless bum - is, to put it midly, unbelievable. In addition, there is a wealthy New York lawyer, played well by Anthony Michael Hall, who is called Pinstripes by the sarcastic homeless man, but responds to his request for clothes by inviting him to his Manhattan condo as his guest, and gives him a suit and tie (!!). Huh?
Rating: 
Summary: A good adaptation of the book
Review: There were many things missing or different from the book, but what movie adaptation is perfect?... Samuel L. Jackson was wonderful as Romulus, and the story made a good movie. If you enjoy the movie, you should pick up the George Dawes Green book -- same author as The Juror, also adapted into a movie starring Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin.
Also, on the DVD's "Deleted Scenes" section there is a WONDERFULLY choreographed scene with Rom's "moth-seraphs" which is just amazingly beautiful to watch! It's too bad they cut it from the movie, but be sure to take it in when you're going through the Bonus Features.
Rating:
Summary: A good adaptation of the book
Review: There were many things missing or different from the book, but what movie adaptation is perfect?... Samuel L. Jackson was wonderful as Romulus, and the story made a good movie. If you enjoy the movie, you should pick up the George Dawes Green book -- same author as The Juror, also adapted into a movie starring Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin.
Also, on the DVD's "Deleted Scenes" section there is a WONDERFULLY choreographed scene with Rom's "moth-seraphs" which is just amazingly beautiful to watch! It's too bad they cut it from the movie, but be sure to take it in when you're going through the Bonus Features.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorites!
Review: This is perhaps one of the most underestimated films of all time. I don't see how this film went totally unnoticed by pretty much everyone. Samuel L. Jackson gives THE best performance of his career as Romulus Ledbetter - second only to Jules Winnfield in "Pulp Fiction". Kasi Lemmons proves once again that she's an excellent director, who strangely hasn't directed anything since this. The music by Terence Blanchard is also excellent. The cinematography is BEAUTIFUL. Everything about this film is excellent, although your suspension of disbelief will come in handy every now and again.
Totally recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Casting is great, but the movie doesn't really work
Review: This is the story of a schizophrenic homeless man who went to Julliard and solves murders. Not exactly the usual stuff. The plot is just too strange and contrived for it to work, but the acting is excellent. Samuel Jackson is the homeelss guy, and manages to make an unbelievable person believable. (Jackson is one of those actors who can do just about anything)More suprising, though, is Anthony Michael Hall; who would have thought the essence of 80s geek, adolescent division, would turn in a fine performance as a Gucci-loafer-pinstriped-suit yuppie lawyer? In fact, an interesting change would be to have them swap roles. Take the pinstripes and the Guccis away from Hall and give them to Jackson, and dress Hall up as the crazy homeless guy, rags and all. I can't imagine Hall in dreadlocks, but it might work! They might even manage it.
Rating: 
Summary: Embarrassingly awful!
Review: This movie is so bad, so silly - it's incoherent, the characters are barely 2 dimensional, the lead (caveman) alternates between cartoon lunacy & amateur sleuth, the plot must have come from a mail-order do-it-yourself writers school. I normally have enormous admiration for Samuel Jackson, but lord knows what got into him to make this bomb...
Rating: 
Summary: Engaging entertainment, but could have been richer & deeper
Review: This movie was more tame and approachable than its subject matter seemed to indicate it would be. I guess that's a good thing if one just wants a bit of well-crafted entertainment or a pleasant diversion. But I was somewhat disappointed that this tale of a homeless man with a mental disorder making his first tentative steps back to the real world (to solve a murder, no less) steadfastly refused to enter challenging, art-house territory and was quite content to emulate the formula of a feature-length "Murder, She Wrote".
Rating:
Summary: Samuel L. Jackson is Simply FANTASTIC
Review: This was one of the movies that I wasn't able to see when I was at Sundance 2001. If you like Samuel L. Jackson, you really have to see Caveman's Valentine. He's just exceptional as a homeless man who grapples with his sanity while tracking down a murderer. The movie works on so many levels and Samuel L. Jackson really draws you in. The DTS audio track sounded fantastic and was just perfect in the scenes where Jackson's character plays piano. The music in the film Caveman's Valentine is a real treat and you get a lot of insight into the whole piece in the Director's Commentary. I'm really glad I finally got to see Caveman's Valentine - it was well worth the wait! [Geoffrey Kleinman DVDTalk.com]
Rating:
Summary: Caveman RULES
Review: Watching this film you get a real sense of ethics and the propelition of Insanity. We fallow the story of Rom who is a man who lives in a cave (He's no homeless) and through a series of truobleing images we find that he has to discover the reason of a murder. It is a real thrill fest, and quite enjoyable. Sam Jackson as you have never seen him before.
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