Rating: 
Summary: Dated But Still Interesting
Review: Jeanne (Schneider) is a 20-year old Parisian girl from an affluent family engaged to Jean-Pierre Leaud's ebullient film-maker Tom. Paul (Brando) is a middle-aged American from a far less affluent rural family who has settled in a seedy Paris hotel (as he himself puts it a 'flop-house') after marrying the owner. Now his wife has killed herself with a razor in their bath and he is left to entertain her distraught and piously Catholic mother whom he despises. Meanwhile Jeanne and Paul are both looking around at flats to rent. They meet by chance in one they are viewing and, with almost nothing in the way of preliminaries, they have sex. Next thing, Paul has rented the flat and they are meeting there regularly for anonymous, noncommittal no-strings love-making. That at least is the idea...This is one of the most famous movies of the 1970s and, in its day, the sex scenes were considered extremely shocking. Twenty-two years later its power to shock has considerably abated and it's interesting to see how well it has stood the test of time. Not very well in my judgment. The problem isn't the sex, though which does now seem rather anodyne (though it remains the sort of film you probably don't want to take your granny to see). The problem is really Paul. I think we're meant to think he is really cool. In his youth apparently he was a boxer, a bongo player, a revolutionary in South America etc, the sort of romantic drifter's resume people who read a lot of Hemmingway are much impressed by. He seems intended to come over as a rather grandly tragic existentialist hero, despising of convention, full of rage and deep things to say about sex, death, authenticity, etc. Back in 1972, with a youthful audience, all this might have worked. Watching the movie today it does not. Paul now comes over unmistakably as an unattractively self-pitying, rather pathetic character. His contempt for pretty much everything and everyone he encounters now just comes over as arrogance, his rage as inexcusable cruelty, the deep things he has to say as kind of silly, self-indulgent and rather boring, the relationship with Jeanne a huge ego-trip. I don't think it's really a success, then, and I don't really think I'd want to buy it. But it's certainly worth seeing if you never have. Directed by Bertolucci, shot by Storaro, it's a sumptuous visual feast for the eyes. There's a gloriously sensual score by Argentinian jazz musician Gato Barbieri. Also some excellent acting including one of the last really interesting performances by Brando before he lost the plot completely. And the unforgettable final scenes depicting Paul and Jeanne's final encounter have a brilliance that transcends the film's significant weaknesses. Indeed for these final fifteen minutes or so at least, it remains a classic.
Rating: 
Summary: They Say Its Rated NC 17...WHY
Review: There Was Not Really That Much Sex In The Film. There was some brutal language Butr Not that much in sex. This film was not at all what they all said it to be. I myself is into love stories such as this and if your a fan like me...dont get this. but dont take my word for it
Rating: 
Summary: BS Detector Hits "11"
Review: Just finished watching this for the 3rd time in the last 15+
years or so. I try to give LTIP another chance every several
years or so, hoping that something in me has changed or matured
so that I "get it" a bit better. Well, I haven't or can't. It still seems like an indulgent, boring mess. Yes, Brando can act.
Yes, Maria Schneider has a fantastic 20-year old body. What does it all add up to? Nothing! A 2 hour waste of time. A movie with a totally emoty story and emotional core. I like a lot of stuff
from the late '60s and early '70s, but if sitting through tedium like this in the name of art was indicative of the era - thank
God we've moved on. Oh, and congratulations to the otherwise usually excellent Bertolucci and Starraro for accomplishing the impossible and making Paris look ugly.
Rating: 
Summary: incredible... but clearly not for everyone
Review: Marlon gives an amazing performance that I strongly recommend to anyone in the acting craft. But I do warn: one must be VERY open minded to watch this film successfully. I must also stress that the characters in this movie are very emotionally SCREWED UP! If you are expecting to be made jolly and happy by this film DO NOT WATCH IT! I think it's a shame to see the reviews given by close minded people or people who just didn't open up to the film and the characters. It's a story of loss, of grief, of unimmaginable pain and how one man(the forever beautiful Mr. Brando)tries to deal with it by tring to forget the outside world. In my opinion it's a true work of art,but I mean this in the acting sense. Marlon Brando truely makes the film for me, and it is his ability to make you feel his pain that makes this such a powerful movie. Actors: if you want to wonder in awe at true perfection this is a must see! But do take into consideration the warnings above.
Rating: 
Summary: gets better as it goes
Review: I thought that this movie wasn't as bold as I thought it was going to be, and I think most people will not like it. However, the movie certainly has its moments, such as the eulogy Brando gives his wife, and his eventual divulging of his personal information to Jeanne. I love the line: "I'm still a good stickman, even if I can't have any kids...I come from a time when a guy like me could walk into a joint like this, pick up a girl like you and call her a bimbo."
Also, I think college guys sit up in their seats when Paul has the balls to say "Repeat after me..." (i don't want to give it away)
All in all, I think there are definitely people out there who can enjoy this film, and I'm still deciding if I am one of them.
Rating:
Summary: The epitomy of futility
Review: My girlfriend of seven years died of cystic Fibrosis after thirty
years of gratitude. I saw this movie about a year later and the scene in this movie when he is talking to his dead wife brought me to such an emotional break-through that I swear I witnessed one of the most personal moments in mine and Marlon Brando's life. We are all trying to define our purpose. Sadly, as with most of us, by the time Marlon's character finds his purpose...
Rating:
Summary: ????????????????????????????????
Review: This is the worst and the best Brando. Good movie with a questionable meaning.
Rating:
Summary: Mad Genius in Paris
Review: I'm giving this film five stars but I know I couldn't recommend it to everyone I know (especially from the reactions of friends I did encourage to see it!). I found it erotic, unique, personal, and powerful when I saw it in college: two desperate souls trying to appease their inner torment with sexuality and failing miserably. What's really stuck with me is Marlon Brando's performance. I thought to myself back then, "That didn't look like acting." I read his bio and found out that he WASN'T acting. What you're seeing is an emotional breakdown on film: his weeping is just too raw and severe; he broke his hand when he punched a door during the mother-in-law scene (an action not in the script); the farm tales he tells were from his own childhood; and, perhaps most devastating of all, he rages at his dead wife's body in the film--but he's really dredging up his real-life anger for his alcoholic mother.
Afterward, he was quoted as saying, "I'll never act like that again." And then went on to do THE GODFATHER.
(Another weird detail: Maria Schneider, the young French girl in the film, is the daughter of a former roommate of Brando's.) It may feel "foreign" in places to an American audience, but this film's scenes of desire, desperation and despair are universal.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Tame
Review: Brando is a middle-aged American whose wife has committed suicide; Schneider is a young European beauty seeking a sense of personal identity. The two meet by chance in an empty apartment--and immediately embark upon an anonymous affair in which Brando seeks to both purge and renew himself through Schneider. Both stars offer intense performances, and director Bertolucci invests the film with numerous poetic and symbolic flourishes. The cinematography is elegant; the score is quite interesting. But when everything is said and done, LAST TANGO IN PARIS is extremely thin stuff that relies on sexual shock to generate tension--and what was once shocking is now passe. At the time TANGO was made, it was unthinkable that a major Hollywood star would appear in such a film... Yet by today's standards, the nudity involved is quite mild, the sex scenes are surprisingly discreet, and the script is oddly niave. It all seems very tame. Moreover, the film's subplots slow the action to a crawl and the film as a whole has a self-concious, faintly pretentious tone. Brando and Schneider, both separately and together, offer quite a few impressive moments, but you have to wade through a lot to get to them. Is it worth it? Difficult to say. Although I don't regret having watched the film, I flatly state that I would not bother to watch it again. My recommendation: rent it before you buy it, because one viewing may be quite enough.
Rating:
Summary: Porky's for snobs
Review: This film was popular with certain audiences, because it offered them the opportunity to see naked skin in their regular cinemas, instead of having to hide in secret places (and be seen by their neigbors). Some managed even to pretend, with a straight face, that they actually have seen "art".
"The last Tango in Paris" is sanctified pornography, Porky's for snobs. The message of this film is: "Sex is boring", "Sex is disgusting". I do not underestimate the educational value of this film. Teenagers all around the globe should see it. It may prove to be more effective than every just-say-no-movement. (For the curious: if you've seen "Basic Instinct", you've seen much, much more.) In the United States this film was immediately helped by Pauline Kael's famous review. Did I forget to mention, that, some years earlier, she couldn't identify with "Bonnie & Clyde"? When this film proved to be a big hit with young audiences, Kael's newspaper bosses told her, that, if she couldn't identify with "Bonnie & Clyde", they couldn't identify with her... Sorry, but the audiences did not go to the cinemas to see "The altered face of an art-form", but Mr. Brando's bare behind.
It may have been a prettier sight than some faces I know, but to let it compete in an oscar-race was an insult to (worthy) winner Jack Lemmon and his fellow nominees (Newman, Redford, Pacino).
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