Una mirada dentro de la mente de Charles Swan III

A GLIMPSE INSIDE THE MIND OF CHARLES SWAN III is just that. A quick glimpse inside the mind of a self-obsessed, sex-addicted album cover artist who's sanity and life are put into question after his latest girlfriend breaks up with him.

Charles Swan III is lightly played by Charlie Sheen, who, looking worse than ever, might seem perfect for the role but only makes it that much harder to care for the character. His mind, life and the film are a chaotic mess. His regrets, his pain and loss come off so insincere, it's boring to watch. What keeps us watching the film is the genuine laughs brought by Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray, who play parts in Swan's real life and multiple roles inside his warped mind. It is the scenes they are in that save the entire film from being a complete failure.

Roman Coppola's bizarre odyssey never takes itself too serious, creating a world where anything goes. That, in itself, is a great achievement for a writer/director. It's hard to tell if it's Charlie Sheen's lack of a performance or if it's the written character's lack of genuine heart that holds this film back from becoming what it was hoping to be: a film for those of us who crave originality and appreciate dark chaotic comedies no one else dares to make.

It's hard to tell whether "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III" is a good-natured bit of self-parody on the part of Charlie Sheen, poking fun at his reputation as a compulsive womanizer, or a vanity project designed to showcase the actor's now-legendary sexual prowess and playboy image. I suspect it's the former, but even if it's the latter, it still doesn't make for a very entertaining movie.

In plot, the movie feels an awful lot like a full-length version of "Californication," as a middle-aged, sunglass-wearing Angeleno laments how he's screwed up with the love of his life (Ivana played by Ketheryn Winnick) because he's never grown up enough to stay committed to a monogamous relationship.

Writer/director Roman Coppola's eclectic, scattershot approach alternates between scenes set in reality - or a close proximity thereof - and wild, but surprisingly flatfooted fantasy sequences heavy on op and pop visuals and graphics (Charlie is himself a successful graphics designer) and light on originality and cleverness. Apparently, there's not really all that much worth taking a glimpse of in ole Charlie's mind after all. Indeed, despite a big name cast that includes Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and Patricia Arquette, the movie feels an awful lot like a third-rate film school project that somehow got green-lighted by an actual studio.

A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (2012)

1/2 (out of 4)

Writer-director Roman Coppola quickly made this thing during the time that Charlie Sheen was going through his mental breakdown. In the film Sheen plays Charles Swan, a man who gets dumped by his girlfriend and begins to act in a variety of strange ways so us lucky viewers get the chance to look inside his mind to see what makes him tick. Okay, who in the hell really cares what makes Charles Swan III tick? I'm going to steal from Roger Ebert's review of this movie and he's right when he said a movie is a sad thing to waste. Not only is Coppola's talents wasted but so are Sheen's and Bill Murray's. Mr. Murray doesn't make too many movies these days and it's rather sad to see him wasted his talents in this film. I'm really not sure what Coppola was going for, although I'm quite certain somewhere down the road this here will be a cult movie with fans dropping acid and smoking joints to it. What we've basically got are a lot of small scenes where Sheen gets to act out a wide range of things. He would be dancing, flirting, find himself in a dangerous situation or he might just be looking at the ladies. The problem is that none of these "visions" are funny and after about ten-minutes it becomes clear that you don't care about Swan or anything in his head. He's a rather boring character who I'm guessing is loosely based on Sheen but I think the film would have perhaps worked better had they really gone after Sheen and the mental state he was in when all of this stuff was going on. I think that would have been a lot more interesting than what we get here. The only reason I don't give this thing a BOMB is that I'm going to at least give the filmmakers, actors and producers some credit for at least trying something different. However, just trying something different doesn't mean you're going to end up with anything good.

Well that's how the movie might have been promoted. But while "Being John Malkovich" actually was funny and enticing, this might have one good scene in it (involving Cowboys). It tries hard to be quirky, casting Bill Murray helps with that. But Charlie Sheen who is playing the character Charles Swan does not cut it. I like quite a lot of Charlies movies he has done. But he can't pull this one off (meta or not).

The problem of the movie therefor relies not in its incoherence (it has somewhat of a straight story line in between all the dream sequences or whatever you want to call them), rather in the lack of "good" incoherence. There is system and a plan when it comes to madness and trying to explore the mind as again "Being John Malkovich" has proved. Charlie Kaufman (another Charlie) is better suited in portraying this. I would suggest not wasting your time on this

I'll give a star for Jason Schwartzman, a star for Bill Murray, a star for Aubrey Plaza and a star for the movie as a whole.

I'm entertained by Charlie Sheen and his antics. While I can't hate the guy because I don't know him personally, I don't want to watch a movie that seems to basically reflect his poor decision making, meltdown and turn around. Too much "nothing" happened. Plenty of fantasy sequences and flashbacks seemed to just emphasize Sheen's boisterous and lady killing ways. In the end it seems like an exaggerated and far fetched Charlie Sheen Documentary. Roman Coppola works much better with Wes Anderson.