Rating: 
Summary: Hysterically Odd
Review: Parts are disgustingly shocking, and therefore, quite humorous. Extremely well acted and directed. All around great flick, with interesting dialogue. This is not to be taken as a true story or at all believable. It's a wonderfully "fool"ish movie.
Rating:
Summary: Pop culture politics & classical aesthetics perfectly merged
Review: People, please. The syndicated reviewer-columnists, with their typically reactionary sensibilities, have found this film to be "off tempo" and "uneven," as if the final cut of every film should contain the same polite fluidity of a "Driving Miss Daisy" (which, by the way, is a near perfect film). However, the rambunctious turns and reversals that define the raw drive of "Henry Fool" are all its own and deserving of the canonical ambition it has to rattle all complacent and homely tastes American entertainment is apt to adopt. Watch it and decide for yourself if heart-felt cinemtaic poetry is tolerable to what you take for weekend "eye candy." This just might be the best "little" film of the nineties. For myself, I could neither see or think about it enough.
Rating:
Summary: Thomas Jay Ryon's overacted pretentiousness perfect!
Review: Probably the most scathing attack by an artist against artists; glorious sarcasm, ascerbic dialogue and a bitter taste of suburbia that is vintage Hartley. Cut the Corrigan backline and, boom, killer film.
Rating:
Summary: Hartley has his finger on the pulse of humanity!
Review: Some people will be turned of by the surreal, irregular, and not always pretty pulse that He records. Myself on the otherhand, loved the stark, original storyline. The dialogue is simply top notch and quoteable, partly because it isnt believable. Its too rapid fire, "B-S-ified" and acerbic to be believeable, lightyears ahead of your typical Hollywood fare. The humor is variable, sometimes dry ( clever), sometimes "Wet" (Dumb/ like bodily functions). The "Wet" humor under other directors would be cliche'd, somehow Hartley is able to add a new twist. All in All this movie is offbeat, and intelligent, ( and for me a revelation), Not at all intended for fans of easy to watch mainstream cinema.
Rating:
Summary: Excellant film with eccentric, sympathetic characters
Review: The characters have many dimensions, are well developed and interesting--even those will little screen time. The relationships between them, while complicated, are recognizable and often touching. Despite some of the "extreme" moments--not all of which are necessary--this is what I would call a "realistic, feel-good film." It reflects not only the eccentricities and painful (even sick) moments in life, but ends on the note that there really is hope for most all of us, and that beauty resides in dark little nooks that we need to stop overlooking.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not great.
Review: The story was good. The actors were funny. And the direction and style were creative. Unfortunately, I found that it lasted too long for my taste. It's a strange and vibrant tragi-comedy in classic Hal Hartley style, with a little more raunchiness to it. Thomas Jay Ryan is friggin' hilarious as the title character, Henry Fool. The guy who plays Simon is also funny, but he doesn't leave the same kind of lasting characater impression that Ryan did. I can't exactly recomend it, because it will undoubtably not be for ever taste. In fact, many will probably hate it very much. Others will love it very much. And still, some like me may simply like it. Either way, proceed with caution.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies I've ever seen
Review: This is one of the few movies that I've seen twice, and I'd see it again but it has left town! The movie is definitely not your run-of-the mill movie. It's a gritty yet optimistic (but not corny) story about life's possibilities, hopefulness blended with cynicism. I sat spellbound. A truly original and creative movie--one of a kind.
Rating: 
Summary: Self absorbed, overacted, pseudo artistic drivel
Review: This movie is totally unbearable to watch. Mr. Hartley needs a healthy dose of reality: a white middle class poet-garbageman in Queens?
Rating: 
Summary: Exploring the quirks of humanity
Review: This was truly an exceptional movie. Directed smoothly, great acting, especially scene-stealing Parker Posey, and a brilliant script. This was a funny, sometimes heartbreaking tale about the underdogs in life. The only flaw was that it was forty minutes too long. But other than that this movie was great.
Rating:
Summary: Henry Fool
Review: To me, this film was, as all of Hartley's films have been, mildly disappointing. Perhaps this is in fact part of the ethos of Hartley's film making--to keep the audience slightly frustrated. If you're reading this review, it's probably redundant to point out that Hal Hartley is clearly a gifted film maker, but those gifts are clearly displayed here. One of Hartley's greatest gifts as a writer is his ability to portray even the most exaggeratedly flawed characters as pathetic (in the old sense of the word--evoking pathos in the audience). Nearly everyone in this film is lonely and quietly desperate, and perhaps it is Hartley's refusal to resolve this in his characters that makes this film so frustrating. The only emotional outlets he allows his characters in this movie are the two manuscripts of Simon and Henry, both written on screen, but never given a voice, so that, while they are commented on, are never shared with the audience, so as a result they tantalyze the audience but ultimately conceal more than they reveal about these two men. The film is very absorbing, but also kind of keeps you at arm's length. And although the film offers brief flashes of insight, ultimately it all doesn't seem to mean very much in terms of the world Hartley has created in this film. The more you see the less you see. . .and perhaps this is the point.
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