Rating: 
Summary: A Chilling and Sad Reality Revealed
Review: I just saw this film for the first time without the benefit of seeing any other reviews of One Hour Photo.From what I've read here, and I certainly didn't read everything by a long shot, a lot of reviewers seem to have completely missed the essence of this film. I'm not going to rehash what the film "is about." You've already read that. But all of the film's deliberate coldness and psychotic tensions reveal themselves through Williams' character, Sy Parons. They ultimately lead to one profoundly sad revelation: Sy is a victim of early child abuse. As the film further reveals, it was by his own father who was undoubtedly also an adulterer (note the scenes of the photos in Sy's apartment where the adulterer father's face is scratched off of every photo). Sy is in no way a "bad" or "loathesome" person. Nor are his intentions evil. He is essentially still a child who could never really grow up, struggling to make something meaningful of his life in spite of wounds that have left him emotionally crippled and unable to deal effectively with relationships. How sad we are for him! Some clues are apparent noteably in the scenes where Sy forces the adulterer to commit further acts with his terrified partner, so that he may photograph them for posterity, or so it would seem. His threat, "If you don't do what I say, I will stab you in the heart", is not what would come from the mouth of an ax murderer. And when he asks the couple to perform oral sex and the adulter proceeds, Sy admonishes him, asserting, "Don't do that. This is not REAL, it's just pretend!" The final scene in the police interrogation room with Sy and his photos is straight from Hitchcock's "Psycho" and a further revelation of Sy's hurt. Bottom line, don't miss One Hour Photo. Williams is outstanding, with the rest of the cast commendable as well. The writing is intelligent and sympathetic and the directing taught and well-paced. One Hour Photo will stay with you long after it concludes.
Rating:
Summary: Bizarre
Review: We are introduced to Sy the one hour photo guy in the beginning of the movie and at first glance he appears harmless. He loves pictures the art of making them but most he enjoys to see the happy people in them...The families he never had. We then are thrown into Sy's sick world filled with photographs of one particular family. This movie is enough to make you want to go digital. This movie is very intriguing and will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Rating: 
Summary: Empty
Review: This is, with out a doubt, a film as empty as its subject. The first hour, which includes a few nice cinematic touches (Romanek is clearly a Kubric fundi), do not make up for a narrative which would most probably have fared better as a back story to 'NYPD Blue', or some such vacuous t.v. confection. Williams, although stellar, has not performed quite as much of an about face as many critics have suggested. Instead, he plays up all of those persona traits we have come to expect from him; the nervous glances, the supplicated need for acceptance from the audience. Granted, these character 'tics' have been wholly subverted. The family, on the other hand, seem to have been conceptualized as nothing more than a cold narrative device, a tease in order to force the narrative to it's conclusion.
Rating: 
Summary: Showed promise, never delivered
Review: An entertaining movie, but never fully reached the protential that it possessed.
Rating:
Summary: Robin williams at his creepiest
Review: this turned out to be a very good movie. At the ending I felt very sympathetic towards williams character (and he's not really the villain here, its the idiot husband who deserves worse than he got). Willaims is very convincing as a lonely, depressed person who has no one and picks a family from his photo customers to be his own, really he is harmless until the husband makes a big mistake. I gave it 3 stars because it does have a few slow moments and the ending was a bit confusing and disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: The Isolation! The Loneliness!
Review: Every shot of Sy, the detached-from-the-world one hour photo tech, has him completely isolated from anything or anyone; each shot shows him in a sterile environment, devoid of any human contact or kindness...many shots are all white with Sy alone in the center; still and quiet, a tiny spot of color, all alone in the middle..the photography is superb and relays the isolation and loneliness of Sy; he has nothing. No friends, no family, no life and on one who cares about him...except the little boy Jake, the son of the family he obsesses about. When the Man of the House is caught fooling around with another woman, Sy is outraged; HIS family is threatened, and must be avenged. His world is one of sterility and loneliness; there is nothing to alleviate or relieve this man, he dwells in a Hell on Earth, comprised of a lonely apartment, a lonely job and a lonely life; always on the outside looking in. It is, IMHO, the finest work of Williams's career, right up there with Dead Poet's Society...this man can do anything, literally, and this is his tour de force. Even in the store, he sits on a bed next to a Hello Kitty doll, completely isolated is his bubble of loneliness; impenetrable, and the shoppers move around him, but never glance at him; he is the REAL Invisible Man. Spied on by the store manager, a wholly despicable man, typical of the Big Fish in the Small Pond and relishing his power (and chance to bully others who are not in a position to fight back) over the underlings/minions who have the misfortune to serve under his merciless eye. He "lives" with this family, he muses about being a family member, included in holidays and regarded with the kindness and caring so sadly missing from his real life. When the store manager fires him, his world, as sad and lonely as it was, comes crashing down; this was, after all, his only hold on life at all and his only contact with people. When this refuge (as bad as it is) is taken away suddenly, he becomes morose and then angry, and his obsession is fuled by this bad turn of events...one wonders how many "Sys" are out there, and how many times we have gone into Walmart, K-Mart, Walgreens, etc., and dealt with people but never thought of them as people, but simply "things" installed in the store for our convenience...one wonders. All the tiny snobberies, inadvertent, but there nonetheless, and the "Sys" of the world go on, alone and isolated while we go home to family and friends and homes with lights and friendly people...Sy's life is, literally, unimaginable, until you see this movie, and really see it. Think about it. Eleanor Rigby...
Rating:
Summary: Don't even consider buying this.
Review: In all honesty, I haven't felt this cheated since I saw that movie ED (Matt LeBlanc and that Monkey) in the sixth grade. This movie was far too predictable and just runs off of a series of awkward moments. Its one of those movies that tries to seem as though it has a deeper meaning, when in reality its just cliche.
Rating:
Summary: So sorry for Robin Williams, my aunt Facunda said.
Review: Robin Williams, ladies and gentlemen is what i like to call a fabulous actor. I regret the fact that he got involved in such a movie. Movies like "Good Morning Vietnam","Birdcage", "Good Will Hunting" and many more really do not put his talent behind shades when contrasted to "One Hour Photo", but actually make us doubt Mr. Williams' judgement. How in the world would Mr. Romanek have the audacity to ask Robin Williams to perform in such a part. This role is intended for someone like my Uncle Cleo, well, You dont know him, but he is just like the Big-Jaw-Black-Haired Guy from ArliSS, maybe he shouldve gotten the SY role, seing how he is going bald anyways. The movie really makes me think of my childhood days back in Wisconsin, where I am originally from, Of Course. Back in the old days we really did not have much technology either, and opted for more prehistoric equipment, i mean, rustic. But in any case, if you got those tickets to watch ONE HOUR PHOTO on Fandango, start crying, because, as my cousin TITO put it once: Fernando, if you go to school, make sure to watch for those kids in the roof throwing things at you.
So please be advised.
Rating:
Summary: Better than good, almost great
Review: How strange that Robin Williams turns out to be the strength and backbone of this movie, since more often than not he spoils movies with hammy performances. But not here--he does an extraordinary job, without sentimentality. The director throws in some Kubrickian touches; overall, it's a very stylish movie. However, its Hollywood roots start to show: the Yorkin house is right out of Elle Decor or Architectural Digest, and the Yorkins themselves look incredibly artificial. As a general rule, people are rarely beautiful AND rich, at least not those involved in industry. Ordinary, perhaps ugly but rich husband, beautiful wife, mediocre child--you know the type. But here, father, mother and child look like they just came off the runway. Connie Nielsen is so overgroomed and sparkling that it muffles her performance--her personality IS the grooming. Her mall attire (especially the hair) is laughable. I swear, you want something bad to happen to these people. And it doesn't end very well--they seem to have run out of ideas to resolve an otherwise climactic chain of events. Nevertheless, Williams is fascinating, if you can believe it, and the SavMart scenes are all extremely tense and interesting. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Taking a shot of life.
Review: In looking through a box of old photographs one might think, as One Hour Photo pointed out, that each time a camera shutter clicked not only was a moment of happiness captured but that the subject was once so precious that it/he/she was thought enough of to capture in time. Nobody ever snaps a picture of the first fall on a bicycle. You never see a picture of your first heart break tears or pictures of Dad after the remote control mysteriously flew across the room. It's as if we paint this picture of our lives with snapshots of smiling happy moments in time that are soon forgotten after a cloud of sadness washes over the landscape. Picture taking comes to a standstill until a child's first or a birthday and maybe a holiday rolls around. Slowly the book fills--all too perfect. Give a kid a camera and see what happens. Regrettably looking through that book of life's small pleasures you'd think we wouldn't become so unappreciative of just having the things that some don't. Such as? Look around you. While you're looking consider who else is looking. If I could evoke a feeling of a sinister spirit slowly worming its way into the picture I'd start with Sy Parrish as depicted by Robin Williams. Of course in addition to meticulously developing your photos in an upscale version of Wal-Mart, Sy is also an avid photograph collector, drives a Toyota Echo and has been silently coveting the Yorkin family since before the youngest member was born. Such a meek and quiet man who you know has issues just by the way he walks and adds 1 set of prints to the normal 2 that Mrs. Yorkin orders. Everything is spic-n-span until Sy's perfect family shows irregularity. In a fleeting moment you silently pity the loner who, in some bizarre way, could have been teaching some form of a lesson; right? You get what's coming to you; don't you? Are you so self-obsessed that when the fist of truth comes barreling down through the lies to crash into your perfect life that you'd risk your family because gee, you were God forbid; unhappy? Hmmm, or maybe the sickest freak in the world just found your cute little cluck of hens just too tempting to pass up. Tasty morsels to chew up and spit out. You want to scream at the parents to wake up! For God's sake, just wake up! But they don't. They won't. That is; until a shy, quiet man--a.k.a. Uncle Sy--decides to snap them out of it. Oh, me likey. From the sick twisted feeling in my gut watching Sy swipe the lidocaine while he deftly slips the hook in an unsuspecting innocent cheek down to the spit and polished floors in the stark planet called Sav-Mart.
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