Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating character study...near-great film.
Review: As one viewer observed, Director Sayles approach is "novelistic". That is, he focuses on character development but renders his explorations...obviously...employing the advantages of the medium. Unfortunately, the limits of movie-making can easily trap a good director. I am in agreement with those who feel that the ending of this otherwise fine film is such a trap. The ending is not trite...merely unsatisfying and a novelist (of stature...as John Sayles certainly is as writer/director)might not attempt to get away with it. "Limbo" was a concept formulated by St. Augustine to explain the ultimate fate of unbaptized children. Sayles' characters are not children and all have been "baptized" into circumstances which permit choice (THEIR OWN... or ANOTHER's) to radically affect their fate. Sayles did a masterful job in LONE STAR and he is attempting something similar in LIMBO. The plot is good; the acting is fine and the potential for a powerful, illuminating conclusion evident. (Especially with "Joe"; superbly played by David Strathairn as a good man...fully aware of what life's "graced moments"...as Mastrantonio puts it...do and reveal, who is suddenly offered one more as a test whose outcome would have been redemptive...or tragically damning.) Instead, the director of this fascinating character study (and adventure)decides to leave the viewer in Limbo. This may not quite be a cop-out...because the film is still "great"...but in my estimate, was an unnecessary and avoidable mistake. But have no doubt, LIMBO is well worth seeing. Several times (perhaps for the several reasons Sayles intended with his risky ending)...
Rating: 
Summary: Starts promising but makes a bad turn
Review: John Sayles' "Limbo" is not as good as it could have been. It starts very well. The first hour tries to capture the mood of the people living in the lonelyness of Alaska, and it succeeds. Additionally, a romance developes between the two key characters.Unfortunately, Sayles' film makes a very bad step at the beginning of the second half. He wants his three main characters to be lost on an island so that they can have all sorts of crises. The plot construction to get them there is contrived beyond believe and the film never recovers from then on. The picture has a very surprising and inconclusive ending. This can be called brave, but I had the uncanny feeling, that Sayles just didn't know how to write himself out of this mess and the ending is a sign of his desperation. Of course I can be wrong. I think "Limbo" should have stayed on the track it followed in the first half. Maybe it would have been a great movie then. John Sayles has sometimes the habit to make his films too "rich" for their own good. The result is that the movies are sometimes a bit unfocused. "Lone Star" is also a film that has perhaps one or two subplots too many. Maybe he should try to film a screenplay written by someone else.
Rating:
Summary: Well, That Was ALMOST An Excellent Film!
Review: I can't believe I just read through 75 reviews! Just goes to show, when you watch this film, you don't simply say "oh well" and flip the channel. That said, it seems to me that at least 90% of those reviews are off-target. On the one hand, the half that are one-star can mostly be ignored. As with all John Sayles' movies, this is a slow-paced but involving story that anchors you into a "place-and-time crossroads": Alaska, as traditional industry jobs are vanishing and being replaced by tourism's less-satisfying service jobs. As always, Sayles weaves a community before your eyes, in this case, a community of people struggling to redefine themselves. Three characters rise to be the leads: they are fascinatingly and heartbreakingly human. Assuming that you like thoughtful movies, you will find yourself immersed, and then, as the title implies, suspended, exactly as the director intends. With all of that, this movie is definitely an involving experience. Now, if that sounds interesting to you, fine, give it a spin. You'll be intrigued, and will understand why there are 75 screamingly polarized reviews here for such a small film. If it sounds dull, or depressing, it probably will be: skip it. And if you've never seen a John Sayles movie before, this isn't the one to start with: go rent "Lone Star", which satisfies on as many levels as Sayles ever chooses to go. (BTW, you will never find an upbeat, fast-paced, movie-movie Sayles film. He just doesn't do that.) If you haven't seen the film, stop reading here. OK, now for all those five-star reviews: nonsense. And as to the condescending POV that, if you don't like this you must have been looking for a Schwarzenegger ending: well, bite me. This idea that, since "what would happen next" was either of two choices and both were trite, so just leave it to the viewer to choose between the two trite endings... what crap! YES, by stopping there, that is exactly what we're left with: romanticism or nihilism. That's the point: THE MOVIE SHOULDN'T HAVE STOPPED THERE. They should have survived, obviously: otherwise, why bother filming the movie? Just stick a note in the DVD case saying, "Life sucks", and a handgun to end it all. They should have returned to the town, plugged back into the story, begun their attempt to trust again together in Joe's house, and... then what? I don't know, cuz I'm not the writer. But surely there would have been a way to leave these characters with open, even ambiguous futures, while still not simply abandoning the story. A lesser writer would never have gotten us to that beach. But a better writer (and Sayles at his best is one of our finest writers) would never have resorted to such a lazy tactic to leave us in "Limbo". Understand, it was HIS CHOICE to veer the plot midway (and btw, in retrospect? The introduction of the brother and drug dealers and all of that was really contrived). If he ran into this either/or boxed-in choice between two bad endings, he should have thrown the entire "strand them" twist into the garbage can, and rewrote. IMO, Sayles will look back on this project and realize that he simply ran out of juice. A shame, since this is one of his finest setups for a film, and definitely, three of his finest and most sympathetic characters.
Rating: 
Summary: Awful Move; Cheaply Shot; Lacking A Story Line
Review: This is an awful movie. It is so cheaply shot it's a distraction. Whoever produced this move needs to go into another career. Awful story line, what little there is. Stay far away from this movie, it's 2 hours of your life you'll never get back but wish you could.
Rating: 
Summary: The Limbo DVD, and David Strathairn
Review: If you don't already have a DVD player, Limbo is but another reason you can't live without DVD, if you are a true student of movies. John Sayles commentary and explanation is extremely enlightening. Along with other numerous DVD's and their commentaries, a director's commentary gives real insight into the artform that motion pictures are. John Sayles's commentary in Limbo is very detailed, and explains a lot about the emotional life of the characters, and how the film medium -- light, sound, production techniques -- all go toward giving that emotional life a real substance on the screen. Sayles is a great movie maker (and I leave it for all the other positive comments to flesh that one out). I want to close with a comment on David Strathairn. He is a tremendous actor and human being. He has played in numerous films, a lot of them by John Sayles, and he is amazing. He was great in films like Passion Fish, and Eight Men Out, quirky in City of Hope, and tremendous here. Like another actor in Sayles group of regulars, Chris Cooper, David Strathairn has also crossed into major studio productions, most notably as Pierce Patchett in LA Confidential. He is a major talent, and it is good to see that he is extremely busy. If the Academy Awards were truly for artistic merit, he would have been a best actor winner several times over! See this film for the great acting, and get the DVD for the rich commentary. This is a great film, and the ending, although not fully feel-good hollywood, is the kind of ending that breeds introspection: We don't know if the seemingly rosy future brings good or evil either.
Rating:
Summary: Lyrical and simply unforgettable.
Review: An unleashing focus on the main characters is what I felt director John Sayles (Men With Guns, Passion Fish) was aiming for. This masterpiece is so lyrical in its photography - each frame of the film looks like an master work of art. And the title, LIMBO, fits the film perfectly. I had thought why it was called that, but somewhere in the beginning of the film I had grasped its meaning. This characters go throught their lives in a sort of life trap...a time loop...but through time...the painful events in their lives are always with them and they seem to relive them in the most crucial moments of their lives. The actress that interested most in the film is Vanessa Martinez. She plays Noelle DeAngelo with a air of tragic importance. Her pain is excruciating and self-evident and that is what makes the character so amiable. LIMBO reminds me of Piradello's classic SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR with its Mother-Daughter relationship. The scenes between Martinez and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (Donna DeAngelo) are well thought out and are easy to relate to by practically anyone who gives the film a chance. A visually stunning masterpiece on DVD, this edition also offers a theatrical trailer, surround sound options, subtitles for the hearing impaired which help out a lot with understanding the storyline, and an unforgetable audio commentary by director John Sayles.
Rating:
Summary: Well, That Was ALMOST An Excellent Film!
Review: I can't believe I just read through 75 reviews! Just goes to show, when you watch this film, you don't simply say "oh well" and flip the channel. That said, it seems to me that at least 90% of those reviews are off-target. On the one hand, the half that are one-star can mostly be ignored. As with all John Sayles' movies, this is a slow-paced but involving story that anchors you into a "place-and-time crossroads": Alaska, as traditional industry jobs are vanishing and being replaced by tourism's less-satisfying service jobs. As always, Sayles weaves a community before your eyes, in this case, a community of people struggling to redefine themselves. Three characters rise to be the leads: they are fascinatingly and heartbreakingly human. Assuming that you like thoughtful movies, you will find yourself immersed, and then, as the title implies, suspended, exactly as the director intends. With all of that, this movie is definitely an involving experience. Now, if that sounds interesting to you, fine, give it a spin. You'll be intrigued, and will understand why there are 75 screamingly polarized reviews here for such a small film. If it sounds dull, or depressing, it probably will be: skip it. And if you've never seen a John Sayles movie before, this isn't the one to start with: go rent "Lone Star", which satisfies on as many levels as Sayles ever chooses to go. (BTW, you will never find an upbeat, fast-paced, movie-movie Sayles film. He just doesn't do that.) If you haven't seen the film, stop reading here. OK, now for all those five-star reviews: nonsense. And as to the condescending POV that, if you don't like this you must have been looking for a Schwarzenegger ending: well, bite me. This idea that, since "what would happen next" was either of two choices and both were trite, so just leave it to the viewer to choose between the two trite endings... what crap! YES, by stopping there, that is exactly what we're left with: romanticism or nihilism. That's the point: THE MOVIE SHOULDN'T HAVE STOPPED THERE. They should have survived, obviously: otherwise, why bother filming the movie? Just stick a note in the DVD case saying, "Life sucks", and a handgun to end it all. They should have returned to the town, plugged back into the story, begun their attempt to trust again together in Joe's house, and... then what? I don't know, cuz I'm not the writer. But surely there would have been a way to leave these characters with open, even ambiguous futures, while still not simply abandoning the story. A lesser writer would never have gotten us to that beach. But a better writer (and Sayles at his best is one of our finest writers) would never have resorted to such a lazy tactic to leave us in "Limbo". Understand, it was HIS CHOICE to veer the plot midway (and btw, in retrospect? The introduction of the brother and drug dealers and all of that was really contrived). If he ran into this either/or boxed-in choice between two bad endings, he should have thrown the entire "strand them" twist into the garbage can, and rewrote. IMO, Sayles will look back on this project and realize that he simply ran out of juice. A shame, since this is one of his finest setups for a film, and definitely, three of his finest and most sympathetic characters.
Rating:
Summary: sayle's finest so far
Review: It's a small film, but delightful and mercifully without characters yammering socio-political history back and forth at each other, it's a welcome departure for sayles. As much as i liked 'Lone Star and 'Men with Guns' i return to this one more often as the characters are more important than the discussion of issues in previous outings, and i dare say better dramatised. As for the ending, i can't accept that it is 'cheesey' or a 'cop out', to me the inference is the 3 central characters are about to be butchered, i for one wouldn't like to see that or the appearance of the 'paul schrader convention' that it all ends in gun play with straitharn turning superman. And if they are rescued, well surely that is the most predictable and dishonest conclusion, what is resolved? the teenage girl is in dire straights and the drug dealers will surely settle their hash at some point afterwards? Besides, i'm sure many would think such a happy ending would be cheesey and a cop out and cetainly not justified, like a tv movie or studio ending to a fritz lang film. Hey we could have mary elizabeth hugging david, her smiling face raised above his head, freeze and slowly fade out. Like the poster says, Limbo, a state of unknowable outcome. I guess it is an ending that reads us rather than the other way round and i certainly prefer it to the utterly depressing and trite end to 'City of Hope' by the same director.
Rating:
Summary: SAYLES SAILS AWAY
Review: John Sayles's LIMBO was presented in 1999 at the Cannes Film Festival and ignored by the international critics. So, if you don't live in Paris, France or in the U.S.A., the only way to view this picture is to buy the DVD presented by Columbia Tri-Star. Furthermore, you will have, as a bonus feature, a commentary of director John Sayles. And that's a hell of a bonus ! As always, John Sayles's screenplay is way over the average Hollywood screenplays we have to bear all year long, but that's not a surprise for those of you who've admired such great movies as PASSION FISH or LONE STAR. A DVD dedicated to the independent ones.
Rating:
Summary: Refreshing Change
Review: If you're bored with the typical H'wood pap, you'll probably enjoy this film. It's gritty, realistic and the ending will give you something to think about for awhile. I thought it was excellent, but don't watch it if you need special effects, Kung Fu, auto chases/explosions, shoot-outs, cleavage or big gaping grins and big square teeth.
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