Rating: 
Summary: Thought provoking film.
Review: Robin Williams is fantastic as an average guy who has become obsessed with his job and with a particular family. There are a couple of scary jolts but be prepared more for an overall sense of unease. The "creep" factor is more because something like this could easily happen - who thinks about the people who process our photos?I put this on par with "The Others". Twists and turns but not outright freaky.
Rating: 
Summary: More interesting for Williams than Story
Review: I heard good things about ONE HOUR PHOTO, but it didn't really do too much for me. The just of the movie is that Williams is obsessed with a family that has been taking their film to be developed to his counter in a discount store for 10 years. He is so obsessed that he has been keeping duplicate photos of them in his own home since their now 10 year old son was born. Creepy and weird is Williams, but also lonely. The store in question looks like it was built 6 months ago and you can practically smell the fresh wall paint, but maybe they just recently moved to a new location. Either way, Williams is fired because auditing notices a discrepancy in the number of photos printed to the number sold. PLEASE! Yes Williams has a wall full of photos at home, but even a thousand photos over 10 years is going to disappear in the paperwork. The boss who looks like the guy who played Lumburg in Office Space fires him because the home office is peeved and someone is going down and its not going to be Lumborg. Preposterous in that Lumburg as the store manager knows anything about the photo department anyway, but the fact that such tight auditing is done when we know that anyone can refuse to pay for prints that are botched is just a silly plot device to drive Williams over the edge. What will Williams do? The ending is a little bit better than these movies tend to be. I think the critics liked William's strange turn, but getting to that point led you through a thicket of plot devices that seemed forced.
Rating:
Summary: The Return of Robin Williams
Review: One Hour Photo was a pleasent surprise. Not expecting much, having being disappointed with Robin Williams's latest choice of roles, Insomnia an exception, I was really engrossed in this psychological thriller that is not your average dose of blood, gore and predictable endings.
Although not a masterpiece, it is nonetheless powerful and very well directed by Romanek, a director that shows a lot of promise.
It is primarily a character study, that of lonely photo guy, Sly, who becomes obssesed with a family he has been servicing for years. It would have been all your average 'Hands that Rocks the Cradle' type of psychos's obsession, had it not being for the wonderful performance by Robin Williams, and the smartly written script. Williams is one of the greatest actors in living memory, and although he has made his name in comedies from his TV Mork days, it is in drama that his talent takes a very different and equally powerful outlet.
His words are few and far between, yet his facial expressions perfectly conveying so many emotions..He is anguished, bitter, angry, and yes lonely..very..
The scene in the hotel room is very powerful , the outcome of which is surprisingly fresh, giving the usual hollywood thriller standard formulae.
In short, One Hour Photo is a very good film, made all the better because of the presence of an able director, and one of the greatest actors ever.
Rating:
Summary: Solid performance by Robin Williams; first rate ...
Review: cinematography. Compelling direction. The only problem for me was that it didn't hold up as well on multiple viewings. Still, it is a movie that is very much worth seeing. I'd heard good word about One Hour Photo, but went into it knowing little beyond the observation that Robin Williams' character was creepy. That didn't surprise me. I've always felt that, beneath the machine-gun style joke slinging, there is something, well, pathological about Mr. Williams. No, I don't think he is a psychopath like his character in this movie. However, let's just say that I always felt that being creepy was part of his less well advertised repertoir. (Come on. Patch Adams was creepy. Admit it.) Let me cut to the chase. This movie is about the writing; about the directing; about the cinematography; and, mostly, about a stunning, understated performance by Williams. There are some flaws here. The actors who play the suburban family on whom Williams' character obsesses turn in relatively weak performances; but, fortunately, their roles are small. Williams so dominates the screen, and does his work so well, that it isn't a distraction that the rest of the world he inhabits seems a bit two dimensional (much like all those photographs in which he lives). I should note that the actor who plays his boss at the SavMart turns in a solid performance, as well. This is critical since Williams' fate at the SavMart, at the hands of this boss, is the core, and entirely credible, linchpin around which this psychological thriller revolves. The music and sound effects are generally used well, although they are a bit heavy handed at times. And the interesting shots and colors are reminiscent of artistic photography--adding a magnificent texture and appeal to the film. This film is creepy, and it sits with you. It's a tribute to good film-making, great writing, and Robin Williams.
Rating:
Summary: Creepy
Review: Sy Parrish, played by Robin Williams, is a middle-aged manager of the photo-printing department of a SavMart. He lives a rather lonely existence, eating his meals in the local coffee shops and going home to a nearly bare apartment. However, Sy harbors a secret fantasy. Having developed the pictures of the Yorkin family for years, he beings to see himself as part of their family. This is when it gets creepy. Eventually the fantasy begins to blur with reality and Sy can't tell the difference. Although it wasn't a movie where you'll be on the edge of your seat, you will want to keep watching more just to see what could possibly happen next.
Rating: 
Summary: CHILLING!!!
Review: This is TRUE HORROR. This is a psychological horror film, wich means it plays with your mind rather than show you creepy visuals. Yes this film does have some creepy visuals (especially the dream sequences), but it makes the viewer use their minds in order to scare them. You do have to pay attention to this film, or nothing in here will scare you. The truly chilling part of the movie is it's powerful soundtrack, without that this wouldn't have been any good. Another scary aspect of this film is that this could actually happen. In other words, this is real. This is one you must see alone in the dark.
Rating:
Summary: Savmart Made a Huge Mistake......
Review: ....when they gired Seymour"Sy the Photo Guy" Parrish to work in the store. Sy is the main character in the movie One Hour Photo which is one of the greatest thrillers in this time period. I recently rented One Hour Photo after months and months of waiting for it to come on video. The only flaw with this movie is that it felt like it was 96 seconds long. In reality the movie is 96 minutes long. After seeing it on video I decided that I really wanted to see it again. Therefore I bought it and watched it again today. It felt as if the movie got better the second time I saw it. Well mabey not better. The word that I should have used was "still excellant." It didn't have the element of surprise when I watched it today but it was still great. The thing that makes the movie what it is is the premise. It has a fantastic orignal storyline. People have stalked people and became obbessed with people from seeing them and talking to them. Nobody ever thought about the people who find out things about other people's lives through there picture. What a fantastic element of thriller Mark Romanek(the writer and director of One Hour Photo) thought up with. Lighting gave the mood of the movie. The lighting was also always different with diffeent kinds of sets. When you saw the photo lab it was very white, when you saw Sy's fantasies about the family he loves it is colorful and happy. When you see the reality of the family it is a little bit colorful but also a little dark. When you saw what Sy did towards the end it was extremly dark. The score was the last thing that the crew of the movie did that wowed me. The music was perfect to this type of movie. Those of you who have seen the movie might know about the music being played when Sy is running in the hotel. It was just fantastic and pretty soon I saw myself humming the theme of that music. Finally the plot. I have talked about everything that has been showen in the movie except the plot. The film opens with Sy(Robin Williams) caught. I never approved of flashback stories...especially in a thriller. In this movie you know that Sy gets caught by the police in the end. That is a minor flaw that all movies that do that have. Sy starts his story with the Yorkins. Nina Yorkin(Commie Nielson) loves taking picture of her son Jake(Dylan Smith) and her husband Will(Michael Vartan). She gets them devopled at the local Savmart where Yoshi and his co worker Sy work. Sy have developed the Yorkins picture since Jake was a baby and eventually thinks that he is part of the family or "Uncle Sy" Nina and Jake like Sy but not as much as Sy likes them. Sy thinks that the Yorkins are the perfect family but he doesn't know that Nina and Will fight about money issues and Jake hears them fighint. Sy thinks of Jake as his nephew and gives him a free disponisble camera for his birthday which just pasts. Nina doesn't know the dedication that Sy puts into the family's photo's more then anyone eles's.But with his contact with the family in the store(at the lab and in the store's isle's when Will goes shopping there)the store's manenger Bill Owens(Gary Cole) becomes increasly concerned with Sy. Bill lays Sy off which is the first thing that gets Sy angry. The raging point of Sy is when he finds out that Will is having an affair with Maya Burson(Erin Daniels). Not to ruin anything in between that and the eventual involment with police detective James Van Der Zee(played fantasticly by Eriq La Salle) Hopefully you have notices that this is a great movie by reading my plot and my reveiw. Of course you have to see the entire movie to really appriciate it. ENJOY!
Rating:
Summary: Eerie Portrait
Review: There are many films that delve into the mind of psychotics - some of the better known psychopaths in film history are Norman Bates of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960), Dr. Hannibal Lecter of Jonathan Demme's "Silence of the Lambs" (1991) and Patrick Bateman of Mary Harron's "American Psycho" (2000). Now comes a sleeper from director Mark Romanek called "One Hour Photo" that presents us with an all-new breed of lunatic - he's the type that even mindful people least suspect. Meet Seymour Parrish (Williams), better known to his co-workers as Sy, who works in the photo lab of a Wal-Mart-type department store prosaically dubbed Sav-Mart. Day in and day out, Sy takes roll after roll of film, developing each with a sense of pride and an incentive for high quality. Most of what comes to life in the dark room are images of birthday parties, weddings, anniversaries, vacations and the occasional amateur pornography. But of all his regular customers, there is one in particular who fascinates him the most. Nina Yorkin (Nielsen), who makes a drop-off nearly every other week at Sav-Mart's photo lab, has a picturesque existence - Will (Vartan), her handsome husband with a five-figure income, their cute kid Jakob (Smith), a classy wardrobe and a home with pages directly torn from an Ethan Allen catalog. Sy is in love with her seemingly immaculate life and unbeknownst to both Nina and Sav-Mart management, he has made and kept additional copies of each roll of film she has turned in for the last eight years. So involved does Sy become with the goings-on in the Yorkins' life that he soon starts following them around, attending one of Jakob's soccer scrimmages and driving halfway across town to a mall where Nina regularly shops. His obsession with the Yorkins eventually escalates to spying and one day a roll of film turned in by a familiar face reveals a dirty secret behind the Yorkins' pristine façade. Mark Romanek, who has had very little experience with major motion picture directing (most of his work is based in TV and a little dabbling in music video), has done a fantastic job in rendering the stark contrast between Sy's monotonous reality and Nina's boisterous routine. There is also an emphasis on color, Sav-Mart and Sy's apartment both barren and blanched (even Sy's wardrobe is toneless) and the Yorkins' home drenched in warm, neutral tones with soft light. The color green appears more than once, symbolic to either affliction (physical/mental) or envy (both make sense considering the film's subtext). Williams is spectacular as Sy, radiating a kaleidoscope of conflicting emotion - sympathy, anger, frustration, despondency and even atonement. While Sy's actions are considered bizarre and a little disturbing from a bystander's perspective, he still manages to evoke sympathy for his behavior, his desolation justifying his preoccupation with the Yorkins' charmed life. This is a turn equal to his Oscar-winning performance in 1998's "Good Will Hunting" and such an abysmal dive into a character that we forget we are watching an erstwhile comedian - Williams becomes a veritable monster. What elicits the most chills are his prolonged gazes at the snapshot mosaic that covers nearly the entire wall of his achromatic living room - his expression is vacant, his eyes icy pools of incomprehension. What is this quiet and outwardly unassuming man capable of? Stalking? Blackmail? Murder?
Nielsen and Vartan do fine as Nina and Will Yorkin and Gary Cole manages to play another hard-nosed character as Bill Owens, Sav-Mart's general manager. Eriq LaSalle makes a brief but smart appearance as Det. James Van Der Zee and the rest of the cast does their best with their small amounts of material. Of course, we aren't really meant to notice the supporting players - it's very clear from the start that Williams is the film's essence. In its entirety, "One Hour Photo" is pretty much a one-man show and Williams exalts the film with little effort. For those who are still skeptical of his dramatic capabilities, "Awakenings" and "Good Will Hunting" should erase nearly all doubt. But please, rent this little ditty first - it is indeed his best performance to date, sadly overlooked by this year's Academy Awards.
Rating:
Summary: Robin Williams Shines
Review: I have been a fan of Robin Williams since "Mork and Mindy". His wit and body language fascinate me and his humor talks to me. I was priveleged to see him perform live once and had an opportunity to meet him at a reception after the performance. He is as funny in person as he is on the screen and meeting him was a real thrill. I have followed his career closely and have seen every movie that he has been in. Sometimes I am disappointed in his choice of film and don't feel that he has had the opportunities that he should have to really shine in some of these performances. However, "One Hour Photo" is an exception. Robin is outstanding in this film. And I call this a film, rather than a movie because I feel that it deserves recognition as a work of art, rather than an entertainment vehicle. Robin Williams disappears into the character of Sy Parrish. With his hair cut short and his eyes concealed by aviator style, outdated glasses, that manic character we all love is gone. Sy comes alive and while we watch his calm exterior, we know that underneath is a churning caldroun of anger, fear, resentment and jealousy. He is truly superb. The conclusion of this film is stunning in that it is unpredictable. We expect murder, everything seems to be leading up to that. Instead, Sy "rapes" the characters with his camera and humiliates an erring husband so harshly the viewer can almost empathize with him. It is a masterful twist to a storyline which continues to build in tension up to the last frame. I loved it. I hope that Robin Williams will continue to develop as a character actor. I was impressed with his versatility in "One Hour Photo," and think that he may be on the right track. Let's face it, he's been in some real stinkers. The man has talent but it is obvious that he needs the right vehicle. This one was right on the money.
Rating:
Summary: Strange...makes you feel unconfortable
Review: Wow this one was strange. I think they named the character "sya" out of humor. Perhaps short for psycho? The films basic plot is about a lonely photo developer who becomes obsessed with photos as a work of art. He feels they are very special with each picture taken. He even develops a philosphy about pictures and the moment it presents. I feel that Robin Williams was the perfect actor for this one because of his soft spoken personality. Even though his past filims have not been as creepy as this one. Without giving away the climax of the film he starts to dream about the family that he could have and perhaps one day. He becomes so obssessed with this he starts taking hundreds of pictures using the negatives that people have taken for him to develop and then posts them on his wall. You get the feeling hes going to murder somone or does he? I wont give away the ending because it makes the movie interesting because the first half is a little slow to build character development. The last half of the film is rather suspenseful. It makes you wonder next time that perhaps maybe you should use digital cams. I have given it 4 stars because the ending is a little bit of a let down because it built you so high for something big to happen and then nothing happens.
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