Rating: 
Summary: Depressing
Review: This is a faithful adaptation of the novel. It certainly doesn't speak well of human nature, and could possibly be one of the most depressing movies ever made. The acting is top-notch from all involved, particularly Nolte (although based on some of his recent legal trouble, maybe he's about as disturbed as the character he portrays here).
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Film
Review: Wow, most of the other people who reviewed this film obviously have some deep seated personal issues that keep them from accepting the movie as a whole. Take this as a sign of the power of this film. Now, I won't say it's perfect, but only because nothing is or can be, but it is a complete film and there's really no reason to single bits of it out for rejection. The beginning, middle and end are all fine. The story is fine, the characters and acting are all fine, better than you'll see in most films. Few movies are made like this, movies where characters don't have easily resolved issues and have a whole lifetime of troubles and issues and tendencies, stories that are unvarnished and don't come with audience pleasing hooks & gimmicks & such, films that don't compromise their soul or subject for useless satisfaction. Take my advice, grow up and watch this movie. As movies go, it's as real as it gets. Chances are you'll not see a film that deals with similar issues in a long, long time, which is a true shame as this causes whole areas of human behaviour and life to be left out, creating a biased, slanted, unrealistic, oversimplified view of life to be reflected. That said, I have to say that this is probably the best film Schrader has yet directed. It's so frustrating that this man, who is one of the all-time greatest screenwriters, can be such an uninspired and bland director. Chalk it up to his intellectual preoccupations and go rent/buy/see this film, if only as a balance to all the Hollywood garbage in your system.
Rating:
Summary: Nolte and Coburn ignite this fine film.................
Review: In Affliction, we see the dark side of a typical American family and what can go wrong when we let our suspicions get the best of us. I liken this storyline to that of Ethan Frome. It's dark and has hardly any light shining through it. It is and honest and real portrayal of what men are capable of doing. I believe Coburn won an Oscar for this one and when you watch this film, you'll see why.
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite good
Review: There were some startling scenes in this movie. Keep an eye out for when Wade (Nolte) storms into Gordon's office and gets fired. Nolte's physical performance looks unscripted, as he assaults the other actors in an intense confrontation, and they react with shock and surprise. It's a testament to both Nolte and Holmes Osborne that they pull off the scene; the two younger actors look rattled. The same spontaneous violence happens in other places. Nolte pulls off the contradictions well; he's good-hearted but powerless, violent and contrite. "I'm like a kicked dog," he says, "and one day I'm gonna bite." And it's easy to believe. Unfortunately, his performance doesn't carry the film. Jim True, as Jack, is unconvincing. The grainy flashbacks, intended to be powerful, are cliched (though Coburn as the father in old age is mostly excellent). Spacek is underused. Dafoe's narration is grating and unnecessary. I really wanted to like the whole movie, but I wound up just being impressed by some of the acting and frustrated by the rest.
Rating:
Summary: good acting
Review: i didnt like this film....maybe because it came too close to home and the relationship with my own father. but the acting was very good.
Rating: 
Summary: Annoying
Review: God! Was this movie a downer! ... I found several faults with this movie. 1: There was not enough backstory on any of the characters. Especially the alcoholic father and Sissy Spacek's character.
2: The conspiracy plot was pretty lame if you ask me, even if it was only in Nick Nolte's character's imagination.
3: The daughter was extremely annoying. It seems like the only thing she said throughout the whole movie was "I wanna go home" I would have taken the whiny brat to Anarctica in order to get rid of her.
With such stellar actors I expected more in the way of a story.
Rating: 
Summary: An strong acted Drama.
Review: When the Town`s Sheriff (Nick Nolte in One of His Best Roles) investigates an accidential shooting, he`s thinks is murder. Meanwhile his mean spirited abused drunker father (James Coburn is a Oscar Winning Role) is slowly becoming him. Directed by Paul Schrader (Writer of Taxi Driver) gives a strong film about a bleak world of violence, depression and lost souls. Coburn steals every scene, when he`s onscreen. A Art-House Hit and also a Well Desvered Classic. Grade:A.
Rating:
Summary: AFFLICTION!
Review: From director PAUL SCHRADER, the man who wrote the scripts for "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull," comes this POWERFUL DRAMA about VIOLENCE in the male world! Adapted from RUSSELL BANKS' novel "The Sweet Hearafter," this film features a couple of powerful performances by NICK NOLTE and JAMES COBURN (in his OSCAR winning role)! Nolte plays Wade Whitehouse, a small town cop whose life of failed relationships, hard drinking and repressed agression is about to EXPLODE! Coburn plays his ABUSIVE FATHER in a first-rate SUPPORTING CAST that includes Sissy Spacek, Willem Defoe and Jim True! The Nation's Film Critics picked Nolte as BEST ACTOR n 1998 in what is far and away is best performance. He might be an OVERLOOKED actor, but do not overlook this OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE!
Rating:
Summary: 5 for the movie 1 for transfer
Review: I will not talk about the movie much, it's great! However when such a great movie is released on such a great media (DVD) you expect it to be - well - great. It is not! It is not 16x9, it is not DD5.1 - just prologic -, and it's a shame to watch the beatiful scenes of the movie on grainy transfer. It's just bad. The director, the actors all did a great job but the DVD company ruined it! In summary 5 stars for the movie, 1 star for transfer, which makes 3 on average.
Rating:
Summary: The Northern Gothic Spun Academic
Review: "Affliction", like "The Sweet Hereafter" (also adapted Banks) or "Fargo", seeks to both have & feed upon its Northern Gothic heart, something old/new/borrowed/blue. The movie is a fairly straight/monotonic adaptation of an interesting, if exceedingly harsh, Russell Banks novel. It's semi-bulletproof, safely within a current critical comfort zone. Call it snow + Snopes = horror? Those who dislike complication can conveniently duck (&/or complain about) a twisted closing voiceover, immerse themselves in cinema horror. Coburn/Nolte play Snopes father/son without hitches, glitches, or complications. Both performances are excellent, fine single-note acting. Nolte's constable/laborer character & a sensibly estranged ex-wife have a daughter old enough to do miner's canary duty. Her increasing fear of Daddy combines with the ambiguously accidental death of a weekend fatcat/developer/sportsfop hunter to accelerate impending doom. What Sissy Spacek, good at projecting shy but not nearly so good at projecting high specific density, is doing within conversing distance of the bomb seems mysterious, but small town choices ARE limited. Zero suspense (gothics are inexorably predictable), but the closing deconstruction, by a son/brother who has escaped (detached from) the violence, become a Boston academic, is effectively dissonant, indirectly asks questions strictly implicit in slicker variations on the theme. Nolte plays a son who remains, steadfast, bearing/carrying affliction, becoming LIKE his proudly ignorant self-absorbed/reliant toughguy drunk father, but the tale is framed by a prodigal son/brother who MAY too blithely gloss over, in closing, his own known (& better understood than he claims, for his record?) contribution to the chain of events. Yes the rich DO get richer, not to mention more corrupt/arrogant/careless, but what are the costs/wages of trying to normalize, become LIKE the rich? Wherever one sets gothic scene, New Hampshire or Maine or Minnesota or Iowa or Mississippibama or Arkansas or Louisiana or Texas or Montana or Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA, interactions between effete/respectable/normal businesspeople (some criminal) & regular working stiffs (some criminal) can be dangerous. As "Affliction" events transpired, brother academic perhaps carelessly encouraged a complex speculative righteousness in brother constable/plowman/victim[izer] suffering from HORRIFIC toothache. He mentions personal complicity as he sums up the tale, intellectually. Expresses regret/sorrow (feels genuine debt to a brother who sometimes shielded him from the rage of the patriarch?), dismisses a shady landgrab by local yokel smart money as business as usual, strictly officially legal, but will NOT sell the family farm for ski resort development. Just stubborn? Think about this? Don't take everything every academic character voices over at you TOO straightly? Note well that the village itself has disappeared (been consumed) by the time of the telling (or re-telling/spinning) of the tale? Derated for currently standard/trite refusal to risk/develop any character(s) with balancing grace/power/force. A simpleton tale told about exaggerated characterizations of a couple of sadly dangerous knuckleheads, signifying nothing, UNLESS gentle viewer elects to carefully consider the voice[over] of detachment from the cycle of abuse, a complicated gnarl that can never be expressed violently, acted out, that must be thought/written/spoken.
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