Rating: 
Summary: Too much praise for a regular movie
Review: After building a career of "nice guys", smiling, funny and even sometimes silly characters, Robin Williams recently decided he could play the bad guy. "One hour photo" is an example, and the more recent "Insomnia" is another (I haven't watched "Death to Smoochy"). I always thought Robin Williams was a one-character actor, meaning he couldn't change his performances from one movie to another - even the psychologist in "Good Will Hunting" and the troubled husband in "What dreams may come", like all other Williams' characters have a sound resemblance to Patch Adams. Well, in "One hour photo" and in "Insomnia" I was proved wrong. Not only Williams can play a problematic and sad character, he can be very convincing (although we always feel sorry for him). In "One hour photo", the Yorkes (Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan and Dylan Smith) seem the perfect family for Sy Parrish (Robin Williams), the "photo guy" from a ... store. Sy is obsessed about the family. All the photo-sets the Yorke family get from Sy have a copy in Sy's house. When Sy gets to know the Yorkes aren't so perfect after all, he slowly but surely starts to plan his revenge. Being a movie essencially about obsession and photography, "One hour photo" is full of light (there is a light bulb, or the sun, or the moonlight in EVERY scene) and colorful. It just didn't work for me, because I was supposed to be watching a thriller, and in my conception (maybe I'm too old-fashioned) thrillers don't work if they're light- and colorful. Mark Romanek's script isn't innovative. His direction is confused, blending old and new technics during the movie. About the actors: Connie Nielsen and Michael Vartan have been better (in "Gladiator" and "Alias", respectively), but theirs are average performances. The kid, Dylan Smith, is rather good. The best performance is by Robin Williams, different from everything I'd seen him doing. In the end, the best thing in the movie was the Yorkes' house (I'm an architect). I give this movie only three stars mainly because I was expecting one thing and got one totally different. Grade 6.8/10
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I was really looking forward to seeing this movie after hearing the raves about Robin Williams' performance. I do think he did an outstanding job, but that was one of the only good things about this movie (well, the cameo by Eriq "Dr. Benton" LaSalle was kind of cool). Here are the things I didn't like: 1. The ending is ruined by the first scene. The movie opens with Sy having his mug shot taken, and across the bottom it says "Threat Management Unit." So you know right away no one's going to get killed, which makes the "climax" of the movie more of an "anti." There went all the tension and suspense. 2. I couldn't become attached enough to the characters of the young couple to care enough whether or not anything happened to them. They seemed like a pair of Barbie and Ken dolls playing house; the acting was bland and uninteresting. When Sy starts to stalk them in earnest, I just thought, "ho-hum." I don't regret watching the movie, because Robin Williams' performance makes it somewhat worthwhile, but I wouldn't recommend buying it for keeps.
Rating: 
Summary: Great debut from the next David Fincher
Review: First of all, if you don't know who the director is, then where have you been the last 10 years? Mark Romanek over the years has directed videos such as Michael Jackson's "Scream" and Nine Inch Nails "Closer." So you know that he already has the visuals down. As for the story, well, Mark wrote it. Robin Williams said in the commentary track that after reading the script, he was hooked, but wanted to see what the visuals might be like. After hearing what videos Mark had directed, Robin signed up to do the picture. The movie? Well, I was anticipating it to be far more gruesome/graphic. Thankfully it wasn't. You're left feeling like you'd watched something by Hitchcock. Extras? Well, the Charlie Rose interview with Robin & Mark is absolutely hilarious. A *must* see. The commentary track with Mark & Robin is never boring... A great first movie from someone I expect to become another "David Fincher"-like director. (Whom Mark is great friends with.) Audience testings? Well, let's just say Mark sent out the picture to his friends Francis Ford Coppola & David Fincher and took their advice on several things... I'm glad I bought this without having seen it, and I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys a great thriller/movie where you aren't being dumbed down by the writing, etc. Pass the popcorn :)
Rating: 
Summary: Photo Finish
Review: Seymour "Sy" Parrish (Robin Williams) loves his job. As a photo technician, he takes great care as he develops pictures brought into his photo lab, at SavMore. He knows many of his customers by name, and how they want their pictures done. One of his favorite customers is the Yorkin family. Every time Nina (Connie Nielsen) and her son Jake (Dylan Smith) bring film by to be developed, it brightens up Sy's shift. Sy thinks that Nina has all the happiness in the world by the photos he sees He believes that her husband Will (Michael Vartan) is the perfect husband. Nina thinks that Sy has a happy life as well. All is not as it would seem on both counts. Directed by Mark Romanek, One Hour Photo, is phsychological study of a how people can slowly descend into maddness. Williams gives a very good performance as Sy. He walks a delicate line here. On the one hand, the audience is able to recognize Sy's actions in the film as demented, but at same time we can also have a generous amount of sympathy for him as well. This is not easy to do. As is the case with many characters like the one Williams plays here, they are more cut and dry, you either root for them or don't. Having heaped all this praise on Williams, one may think that One Hour Photo is a perfect film. It is not. As good as Williams is in the film, no one else in the cast really wowed me. The other charaters seemed rather one demensional and at times quite predictable. I know that Seymour is the thrust of the film, but I wanted to know a bit more about the others and their motives. The end of the film was a bit weak too It kind of just sat there. The DVD offers some solid extras. The commentary track with Romanek and Williams is pretty insightful with its content on how the film was made. There's the featurette that ran on Cinemax, a cool "scene anatomy" feature provited by The Sundance Channel, some TV spots, and the theatrical trailer In the end I would recommend this DVD, Despite my reservations about certain aspects of the film. The extras provided enough background on the film though, for me to still give the disc a solid **** star rating
Rating:
Summary: 'Great movie'
Review: Something like 'American Beauty' and 'Dreams'(Akira Kirosawa)'combined,the narration is something like from 'American Beauty',while the movie sound track is something like from 'Dreams'. Here we have another 'Save Mart Supermarket' clone,which is misspelled 'SavMart'.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, though sometimes hard to watch
Review: ...because Robin Williams does such a magnificent job as the pitiful and scary but still poignant Sy the Photo Guy, a study in total loneliness and isolation. You can't help feeling for the guy, no matter how creepy and abject he is; there were many points when I just had to look away from the screen because I felt so sorry for him, more so than watching a million survivors of your run-of-the-mill wars, natural disasters, violence, etc. The other actors are also well cast, from the hard-nosed Walmart boss, to the supposedly perfect family that Sy idolizes. This is a subtle film, with striking visuals that keep your attention but avoid too much flash and sensationalism. (Surprising, given that the director used to do music videos.) Even though I correctly guessed the basic plot during the first 5 minutes, it still takes some unexpected twists at the end, surprisingly controlled and un-cliched twists---for example, though Sy arms himself with a six inch knife he actually doesn't use it to slice up his victims into several dozen little pieces as a more typical Hollywood melodrama would probably have him do. This film admirably doesn't take the easy way out...it's not a simplistic portrayal of a simplistic loner-psychopath, nor a simplistic expose of a Yuppy family that's not anywhere as idyllic as it looks. The brilliance of this film is how ambiguous its main characters are, how it blurs the lines between one troubled man's delusion-life and the delusional lives most of us lead. There are vast and fascinating subtexts here which are implied but not spoonfed; consequently this is a film that definitely stays with you...one of the best I've seen in years!
Rating:
Summary: Williams can pull off scary as well as he pulls off comedy!
Review: Williams is a sad quiet star as Sy "The Photo Guy", a clerk at SavMart where he takes a vested interest in the lives of the Yorkin family, who drop off a roll of film at least once a week for several years. Sy develops an extra set of prints of their photos for himself, so he can share in their lives and imagine himself as "Uncle Sy" to 9-year-old Jake, whom he has seen -- both in photos and real life -- since he was a baby. The Yorkins are the perfect family, to lonely unloved Sy, and when he suspects the father is going to ruin that perfect family, his twisted sense of loyalty leads him down a scary path. I like how this film takes something so small and innocent and everyday -- taking snapshots --- and turns it into a psychotic demonic obsession. It makes you wonder about the people with whom you come into contact every day, even in a small way, when you see how Sy has privy to their private moments via photo development. He knows more about them than they had ever imagined. In a strange way, this makes him feel close to them and want to share in what he oerceives as their beautiful life (Sy lives in a ill-furnished modest apartment downtown compared to their palatial suburban home.) WHY Sy is so taken by photos (he hunts flea marts in his spare time, looking for vintage photos) becomes shockingly clear at the end --- you will not see it coming until he tells us why. And it is so so sad. Sy is not really a bad guy, but he does bad things because he is trying to scream into the void and be heard. Frightening.
Rating:
Summary: Great flick...Great Performance
Review: I first saw this movie with this in mind: Robin Williams plays a creepy character. After watching it I have concluded that Robin Williams played a creepy, psycho, and scary character. And Williams played it brilliantly and convincingly. He really made me hate him for being that "weird". That's how good his performance was. I kept yelling out "psycho" at my TV screen while my friends kept tellin me to shut up. It's not as emotional as his performance in Good Will Hunting, but it is rather subtle and dark. As I said earlier, he was creepy. Aside from Williams' performance, the movie overall is worth watching. There is great use of color in this film. And there's good directing. I thought the script was okay and sub-par. But the joy of this movie is watching Robin Williams play his character, Sy, so well. Good ending also. It explained a whole lot! Like why he's "psycho!" Do yourself a favor, and check this movie out.
Rating:
Summary: Robin Williams's best movie as a serious actor
Review: I have to say, that it is nice to see the critics giving a Robin Williams movie a good review instead of the usual bad reviews of his movies. And Robin Williams looks diffrent in this movie, than he does in other movies, but sonds the same. The movie also has Gary Cole from I'll Be Home For Christmas plays his boss Bill Owens. As the movie opens, Seymour Parrish works at the photo counter at SavMart. Seymour takes your film, gets it devloped, and has it ready until time for the custmors to pick up. But the only things, his custmors don't know about, is that he makes copies of photos that they haven't taken for himself. Seymour's favorite custmors are Mrs. Yorkin (Connie Nielsen) an her son Jakob "Jake" Yorkin (Dylan Smith). He gave Mrs. Yorkin 5x7 photos when she wanted 4x6 photos. And when he learns that Jake has had his 9th birthday, he gives Jake a free camera for his birthday. There is one custmor that only takes photos of cats, and another that takes photos of wrecked cars. This movie is Robin Willam's first movie to run under 1 hour and 40 mintues since Flubber. If you are not a fan of Robin williams' coemdies, you will love this movie, because he plays a seroius character. I would also reccomend this to you if you didn't think that Robin Willams could be serious.
Rating:
Summary: Emotionally Disturbing Thriller
Review: One Hour Photo was the most disturbing film I've seen this year. Its effectiveness in disturbing an audience comes from creating a character, Sy -- the photoguy -- with whom on some level just about all of us can relate to. Chiefly, that he is lonely, hard-working, clean, mild-mannered, affable, and modest. We've all known someone who portays some of the likeable characteristics that Robin William's vehicle, Sy conveys. But William's character's loneliness develops into an unhealthy and illegal obsession with the charming young Yorkin family. As a photoguy at the SavMart's One Hour Photo lab, he has access to their very normal family photos. That's where the story gets creepy! Sy's attraction to the Yorkin family is not the typical sicko lust attraction. Indeed, writer/director Mark Romanek establishes early on Sy's dislike of pornography, which gives his *emotional* obsession a creedence it wouldn't have had otherwise. Essentially, Sy's attraction/obsession to the family develops to fill the emotional emptiness in his life -- his loneliness -- and the line between an appropriate concern for the family's well-being and an inappropriate concern (indeed, a legal and illegal concern) is the tight-rope Mark Romanek carries the audience along for most of the film. Some of the things Sy does are nice, good, and likeable -- that's what makes this so disturbing. Obviously, plastering his apartment wall with a Warhol-esque assemblage of the Yorkin family photos is bizarre -- even illegal -- but much of his other interaction early on in the film seems to have good intentions. Indeed, the scale is clearly tipped only when Sy loses his job because of his unhealthy and illegal obsession with the Yorkin family photos *and* finds out that Will Yorkin is cheating on Nina his wife. My girlfriend and I kept saying "What's he gonna do?" and "How's the film gonna end?" in that we didn't want Robin Williams to be bad. The audience wants him to do good and it's established that he is capable of doing good. Indeed, Sy ends up conveying a rather convoluted cautionary tale to the police detective (the guy from ER!) at the end, warning him against neglecting *his* family, against infidelity. And Romanek makes a point to show that the detective is listening to him, albeit skeptically at first. Ultimately, it's safe just to call this a psychological thriller and to say bad, bad, bad -- that there's no question that Sy the photoguy is bad. But it may be that he *has* good intentions that makes his bad intentions all the more compelling. A complex film. A remarkably self-controlled performance by Robin Williams. Well worth the 4 dollar rental fee. Stacey
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