Rating: 
Summary: Where's the Romance?
Review: This film was advertised as a "romantic comedy," but after watching it I couldn't help but wonder, "Where was the romance?"
Johnny (Al Pacino) doesn't take Frankie (Michelle Pfeifer) on any romantic dates, for example. The way Pacino plays him, Johnny seems creepy; more like the kind of guy a woman meets on a disastrous blind date, rather than the kind of guy an attractive woman like Pfeiffer would fall in love with. Nor is it much of a comedy. The movie starts out with Michelle Pfeiffer's character conspiring with her female co-workers to pour boiling water on the lap of a sexually harassing customer. This bit of slapstick is as funny as the film gets. You're lucky if you get a couple of chuckles out of the whole film. The main theme of the movie seems to be violence against women. Pfeiffer's character keeps seeing, through an apartment window, a neighbor being beaten by her husband/boyfriend. In the film's climax, she confronts the victim when they meet in a grocery store, confessing that she too was once beaten by a male companion. The moral of the story seems to be: If you don't want to get beaten by your boyfriend, ladies, go out with a creepy ex-con like Johnny.
Rating: 
Summary: A great, relatable movie.
Review: This is a story about lonely people constantly coming into contact with other people, but never really connecting. Everyone can relate to this movie! Al Pacino is fabulous, and you really feel like you're looking into another persons apartment window watching the events inside. This feeling correlates into the story as Frankie(Pfeiffer) stares out her window eyeing her neighbors going about their daily life. One man takes off his toupee, another couple eats dinner silently. This movie is wonderful, and the characters in it are strong, lonely, and loveable.
Rating:
Summary: a great, overlooked gem
Review: This is one of my favorite movies. Like other reviewers, I didn't see it until it went to TV. I caught it on WPIX one afternoon and have since rented it many times. Pacino and Pfeiffer are wonderful as the two protagonists, one who is out of just out of prison and looking for a better life and the other in a prison of her own making, disillusioned with her life and afraid to try again. The bedroom scene is sensual and sensitive without being graphic or predictable. Hector Elizondo, Kate Nelligan and Nathan Lane play their parts with panache and help create a wonderous world out of a seedy, rundown diner and neighborhood. If you're in the mood for a romantic comedy-drama, this is the movie to see.
Rating:
Summary: SOOO ROMANTIC....
Review: This movie is my all time favorite! Ladies if you have an afternoon free and want to chill and watch a wonderful chick flick, This is the one!
Rating:
Summary: Best Romantic Movie Ever Made!
Review: This movie is one of the best!! You have to own it. If you are a hopeless romantic, then you MUST have it!!!! Not a movie for the kiddies. Just you and with someone you love or want to love...
Rating:
Summary: Best Romantic Movie Ever Made!
Review: This movie is one of the best!! You have to own it. If you are a hopeless romantic, then you MUST have it!!!! Not a movie with the kiddies. Just you and with someone you love or want to love...
Rating: 
Summary: Star power kept this from being a two star movie
Review: This movie is very uneven, with Pfeiffer's character alternating between a stereotyped New York tough and one's high school sweetheart. Pacino is good, but unconvincing; who would take the constant rebuffs meted out by Pfeiffer? The movie lacks depth, and is generally boring. It has some moments, but overall, not very good.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite of all time.
Review: This movie means so much to me. The script, the acting, the directing-- it all comes together with a great story to offer up some really amazing moments. It captures the intrinsic quality of loneliness, the fear of being close to someone, the courage to be true to yourself. Al Pacino's character is almost creepy, and the elegant Michelle Pfeiffer is, believe it or not, downright dowdy. Even on the fifth viewing, I found myself feeling embarassed (alone in the room), my heart aching, and my idealism & hope returned to me. For those of you who want a storyline: Al Pacino is an ex-con on his first post-prison employment. Michelle Pfeiffer is the main character, a waitress who catches his eye, and he persues her. But he's kind of creepy, and she has that post heartbreak love of being alone, so she rejects him. And so he persues her more, showing more of his creepy touchy-feely idealistic self, and a bunch of stuff happens, and they live happily ever after. It is a romantic drama, after all. Many funny moments, and an excellent cast-- early classic work for Nathan Lane in here as well.
Rating:
Summary: the best
Review: This movie should have won academy awards for best screenplay best actress (pheiffer) and best picture in 1991. Instead it made 6 million at the box office-you figure it out.
Rating:
Summary: The Movie Is Better The Second Time Around
Review: Thre are a lot of things to like about this movie. The supporting actors to a person are perfectly cast. It's hard not to believe that the director just took over a Greek greasy spoon in New York and used its employees. You can literally smell the grease as the short-order cooks scramble the eggs and bacon. And you can feel the loneliness in the pit of your stomach as these characters go home to their less-than-fine apartments. They are the people Barbara Ehrenreich writes about in NICKEL AND DIMED. Robert Frost would say they have nothing to look backward to with pride and nothing to look forward to with hope. Paul McCartney would call them Eleanor Rigby. Many of them will never rise about their minimum wage-plus tips jobs; yet they show a resilence and endurance and manage to find laughter in their dismal jobs that is heart-warming.
This film has as good a portrayal of gay characters as you are likely to see. Terrence McNally has created here two, believable, likeable gay men who act like real people. There is a quite funny scene when Al Pacino meets the gay couple for the first time and makes all the usual mistakes though well-intentioned-- he didn't realize, you would never know, he just found out that his cousin is gay-- to which Nathan Lane quips that he will check the cousin out in the new listings.
This movie says that a short-order cook (Al Pacino) recently released from prison can find happiness with a waitress (Michelle Pfeiffer) with broken dreams. That may be a tall challenge, but most of us would like to believe in that possibility. It's all about starting over, taking a chance, tearing down the walls that separate most of us from each other and taking a chance on love.
Michelle Pfeiffer cleans up well and is almost too pretty to be a down-and-out waitress. But then, nobody's perfect.
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