Rating: 
Summary: Nolte, Bridges, and Stone working together
Review: "Simpatico" PLOT: The lives of a rich horse-breeder and his wife are turned upside-down when an old friend returns with some incriminating evidence to link them to a blackmailing scheme which occurred about 20 years earlier Directed by Matthew Warchus (
Rating:
Summary: Nolte, Bridges, and Stone working together
Review: "Simpatico" PLOT: The lives of a rich horse-breeder and his wife are turned upside-down when an old friend returns with some incriminating evidence to link them to a blackmailing scheme which occurred about 20 years earlier Directed by Matthew Warchus (
Rating:
Summary: An entertaining suspense-drama film.
Review: A kentucy horse breeder owner (Jeff Bridges) plunges into the aftermath of a racing scam after his derelict buddy (Nick Notle) calls from california and makes murky references to a crime from the men`s past (Albert Finney).The all star cast is excellent from Bridges, Notle, Finney, Catherine Kinner & Sharon Stone. This film is based on a play by Sam Shepard works well on screen. Well directed by Matthew Warchus. DVD`s has fine anamorphic Widescreen (1.85:1) transfer & An good Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. An stunning one of a kind film. Grade:A-.
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Summary: I'm sorry... I totally enjoined this film. Simpatico
Review: Academy Award Nominee, Nick Nolte. Academy Award Nominee, Jeff Bridges. And Academy Award Nominee Sharon Stone. How much can three friends share? A GREAT MOVIE -- Simpatico. I loved Simpatico to it's very ending. I loved the dramatic and intriguing cinematography. I loved the music (especially the ending "Games People Play" by Petula Clark). But I loved watching the characters just melt into the sinful guilt and shame that they all were apart of. I'm probably the biggest Sharon Stone fan in the world, but this is not a Sharon Stone film. She doesn't come in till the third act, which to me doesn't truly give the film justice because she had a big part in the scandal when they were younger (which is detailed threw flashbacks). The screenplay is magnificent. It's very fun to watch Nick Nolte as the "down and out" kind of guy (again), transform into the Clean cut Jeff Bridges character, as Jeff goes the other way. This movie displays for us what a secret can do to you over the years. It can come back and start to devour you in entirely. Simpatico (which is based upon the play by Sam Shepard) is an extrodinary piece of modern human intrest story. It is a true winner. An ultimate 5 star film.
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of time
Review: Although both Bridges and Nolte do great with their roles the story itself is confusing because they are constantly flashing back to the past without much detail. My advice don't waste your time or money on this film.
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Summary: Lots of Emotion over Not Very Much...
Review: Good actors in a bad movie. Nolte and Bridges play childhood buddies with a dark (dark-ish, by Hollywood standards) secret, which comes back to haunt them. Why now, after so many years, do things come to a head? We don't really know. Characters (like Catherine Keener's) float around with no apparent purpose. Bridges and Stone experience emotional meltdowns rather too suddenly to be believable. The hysteria just isn't warranted, given the crime, and the time that has passed. Even Albert Finney--a great actor by any standard--seems to be wondering what's going on. As always, though, he's a pleasure to watch, and his character possesses a bearing and dignity that the others could stand to learn from. Expect one thing from this movie: a keen sense of disappointment.
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Summary: To be fair there's nothing wrong with Simpatico
Review: guys There's nothing really wrong with the movie It's competently acted, well filmed, and although first-time film director Matthew Warchus doesn't really open up the film, nothing really bad can be said about the direction. Even the plotline works, although at certain times the past-tense scenes seem intrusive
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Summary: Sharon Stone Fans it is not.
Review: I had to buy these movie, because I am a Sharon Stone fan. I was so disappointed. In the whole movie you get to see her in about 5 short times, which where the 5 best in the whole movie. The rest of movie was boring. I love Sharon Stone Movies and have them all. Hope to see her in somthing better soon.
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Summary: What a waste of time!
Review: I should have known - with a great cast, I had never heard of this movie and here it was on the shelf with the new DVDs. I made the mistake of renting it and spent a couple of wasted hours watching it. No wonder I'd never heard of it! By now you know the story, having read the other reviews, which seem to echo my opinion. It is a boring movie and I'm sorry but I do get upset when the hero gets murdered - in this case, the beautiful thoroughbred of the title. Don't bother - with all the great movies out there, this one isn't worth your time!
Rating:
Summary: very weak film noir with two great minor characters
Review: Somewhere buried deep inside the mess that is "Simpatico" there lurk the makings of a pretty decent little love story. Unfortunately, one would have to eliminate pretty much the entire main storyline and all the major characters in order to find it. This tale of "three people caught in a web of their own making" is so thoroughly inept, overwrought and inconsequential that it seems more like a parody of film noir than a serious entry in the genre. The crime that these three people perpetrated in their youth - the one that keeps coming back to haunt them in their approaching middle-age - seems a piddling one at best for a film of this type. An even more serious problem is that the three lead performers seem stuck in roles that have come to define their métier as actors. Nick Nolte, for instance, plays his customary down-and-out, barely-teetering-on-the-edge-of-sanity middle aged loser whose capricious nature makes him forever a threat to the security of the group, while Jeff Bridges portrays the common sense, constantly put-upon ringleader who just wants to forget all about the past but who has a hard time keeping a leash on the unpredictable Nolte. Sharon Stone completes the trio as Bridges' now moody, alcoholic wife - a pale imitation of her much more meaty role in Martin Scorcease's "Casino." Stone's over-the-top thespian simpering reduces the (fortunately) few scenes she is in to the level of unintentional high comedy. Moreover, in their attempt to provide a dual level structure to their tale - crosscutting scenes of the past with scenes of the present - the filmmakers have been forced to employ actors who look nothing like their contemporary counterparts. The result is, initially, confusing and, ultimately, quite ludicrous. What is most strange about "Simpatico" is that, while the story itself fizzles and the audience could care less what happens to these three whining, puling, muking central characters, writer/director Matthew Warchus and co-author David Nicholls somehow manage to create a back story and two minor characters who engage both our sympathy and our interest. These come in the form of the always splendid Albert Finney as the man our intrepid band of halfwit con men managed to entrap into an extortion scheme twenty years earlier, and the charming Catherine Keener as the highly principled grocery store cashier who finds herself unwittingly a pawn in Bridges' plot to rein Nolte in. Finney and Keener provide so much warmth and humanity in their few scenes together that we find ourselves regretting that the film does not revolve around them entirely. Wisely, after we wheeze our way through all the hullabaloo and nonsense necessary to bring the main plot to its ludicrous conclusion, Warchus closes the film with a coda focused on these two winning characters. The finale, in some inexplicable way, seems more like a beginning than an ending and we find ourselves wanting to see what happens to this offbeat, likeable couple. By wasting our time concentrating on the Nolte/Bridges/Stone triumvirate of insipidity, the filmmakers end up making us feel even more resentful in the long run. Like the victims of the trio's racetrack shenanigans, we feel robbed!
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