My Forgotten Man

I can only think of one reason this movie was released. To capitalize off the upcoming fame of Guy Pearce. This movie has no merit at all and needlessly trashes Errol Flynn's memory. The homosexual encounter was pure speculation. The disdain shown for Flynn in this movie is palpable. An easy way to slander an actor who died years ago. Horrible and embarrassing. Very disappointing. Don't waste your time on this utter trash. Watch My Wicked wicked ways if you want to learn about this fine actor or read his autobiography. This movie is NOT the way.

This film takes a lot of liberties with the known historical facts.Even little things like Flynn licking one stamp after another, when he almost certainly would have used a moistened sponge, is one of the annoying things. Flynn was never tried of manslaughter or murder. He is not known to have caught his mother making love to another man, and is not known to have had an homosexual relationship with anybody, and he did not end up on skid row in Sydney. He did not get his twopenny-halfpenny role in In the Wake of the Bounty by imposture and this role did not turn him into a well-dressed film star.

This is just a mediocre film where the name of Errol Flynn has been tacked on just to sell more tickets and more videos.

One wonders how FLYNN could have failed so badly as a cinema release in 1997 with Guy Pearce aptly in the lead role. It is not often that the casting of someone so famous is so exactly right. FLYNN was a stumbler at the box office and did not end up on cinema screens in Australia...even after LA CONFIDENTIAL...! From a dazzling nude scene in the first few minutes (presumably by Guy Pearce) FLYNN gets off to a fairly robust and interesting start. Sadly, FLYNN runs out of steam after about the first 35 minutes and with the entrance of hammy Steven Berkoff in a detour to New Guinea, (looking and acting like he wanted the Klaus Kinski role in FITZCARRALDO) the film starts to resemble a tele movie rather than a major cinema biography. Believe it or not, by about the 70 minute make, it is boring and you are glad to see it over. But such promise! Pearce IS Flynn! But the movie caused a mutiny at the box office and unlike The Bounty, sank without trace.

I have no idea how accurate the portrayal of Flynn appears in this film but even as a work of fiction it is one of the worst films I have ever seen.

The script is all over the place and leaves you wondering how he got from one scene to the next - you are just not given the minimum information needed to keep some continuity and understand his present situation, and it is difficult to understand Flynn's and other characters' motives behind some of their behaviour.

Add to that a series of silly and implausible situations and you have film that comes across as one of your dreams that seems to make sense while you are asleep, but when you wake up and you try to remember it, it is just strange, disjointed and totally unrealistic.

There are many long, boring musical sections of the film that to me are either bad direction or a bad director trying and failing to be artistic.

None of the characters are even likable and the Flynn character comes across as a self serving liar, thug, thief, robber, murderer, bear fist fighter, gigolo and impostor who will do anything and step on anyone to further his own dreams, and somehow, despite all that, great opportunities just seem to miraculously fall into his lap.

This film is not entertaining nor satisfying in any way and by all accounts not even historically accurate, so why even watch it? To rub salt into the wound, the DVD had one of the worst transfers I have ever seen, it wasn't even in wide-screen or Dolby 5.1, it had terrible telecine wobble and many, many artifacts from what looked like a film reel that had been gathering dust and scratches somewhere.

Guy Pearce almost looks like Flynn, and this resemblance is the only one this film can claim. Nowhere in Flynn's autobiography is the Klaus Reicher character mention, the homosexual encounter is speculative fiction, and the movie's claims that Flynn treated native labor badly are groundless. Director Frank Howson hasn't made any memorable films, and I find it lame for him to groundlessly slander Flynn to further his unremarkable career.