Girl Walks Into a Bar

"Girl Walks Into a Bar" is made up of a bunch of connected scenes, each taking place in a different bar. These scenes are heavily dialog-driven (sometimes with internal dialog). Some of them work, some don't.

Most of the dialog is clever, well-written, and delivered by good actors. It's unrealistic and fast paced, with no time between a line and the response to that line. This is good entertainment, but if you get bored by dialog you'll get bored fast--there's no action here.

There's a sense throughout the movie that you're watching a long, fast paced joke. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you start to wonder when the punchline is going to show up, which can be distracting.

Good movie overall, there's a lot of talent involved.

Sebastian Gutierrez's 'Girl Walks Into A Bar' may not be the cleverest or wittiest of its kind but I found it very colourful, amusing and atmospheric. It captures the essence of nightlife in the city quite well. The sets and/or lighting are pleasantly colourful. The settings and situations appear to be colour-coded. The score and cinematography are effective. That's the technical side.

Now to the writing, it's quite alright. There's a certain noire style to it. The characters are quirky. Some situations and dialogues feel a little forced and some jokes fall flat (especially in the Robert Forster track) but otherwise the dialogue is quite funny and delivered well.

The acting isn't bad either. Carla Gugino is excellent and Emmanuelle Chriqui is brilliant, especially in her opening sequence. Amber Valetta and Aaron Tveit are quite good too. Alexis Bledel and Danny Devito are great in their single scene. Zachary Quinto, Rosario Dawson and Josh Hartnett are adequate.

Overall, 'Girl Walks Into A Bar' is a funny atmospheric semi-noire film. Not a classic but enjoyable nonetheless.

"Girl Walks Into a Bar" is, at once, both better and worse than it was marketed as: A witty comedy with a cast of strangers in inter-locking stories. It's the inter-locking stories part that gets disconcerting. That generally means we get too many loosely-related stories with too many characters that we barely get to know with meaningless plot lines that don't go anywhere. This movie isn't that, it's mostly better.

There are only two story lines, born from each other, with arguably two or three main characters. And the beginning totally gets us invested in them. Nick (Zachary Quinto) is sitting nervously at a bar and doesn't want anyone to join him because he's waiting for someone. Francine (Carla Gugino) is that someone; he just doesn't know that. Minutes later we suddenly have no one left to sympathize with when it is revealed that Nick is about to commit an unforgivable crime and Francine gives no concern to the lies she just said.

Henry (Aaron Tveit) walks into a bar and steals our attention back. He flirts with Francine and just for the fun of it, and steals her wallet. Our two story lines involve Nick on his mission of crime and the law enforcement on his tail while Francine is on the tail of Henry. Their night of adventure involves checking into a number of bars each with another person to meet. The cast list is quite the collection of talented, mostly recognizable names, but they have nothing to do. Sometimes they say things that are supposed to be clever but are not.

That's where the film is worse. The dialogue is not witty nor funny, and it should not be classified as a comedy. There were quite a few scenes which had actors saying crap that none of their characters should have said and which added no meaning or value to the film.

Then the movie ended with some kind of choreographed musical and dance number which didn't conclude anything. Almost unbeknownst to me, Nick's storyline was wrapped up in a previous scene (Josh Hartnett's only scene) but with one short, stupid phone call. Quinto can act, as can Hartnett, and a well written scene with confrontation was desperately needed. After the first two scenes, there was very little confrontation, and indeed revealed that you weren't watching much at all. "Girl Walks Into a Bar" seems visually interesting, with compelling lead characters, good acting and clever story lines but then doesn't really go anywhere.

A compelling and agreeable multi-story ensemble dramedy from writer/director Sebastián Gutiérrez, who has made several of these anthology format films. I'm particularly fond of these kinds of ensemble films and while there remain some acceptably unresolved loose ends by the time GIRL WALKS INTO A BAR is over, it's a very intriguing and entertaining movie. While its storyline is pretty thin, I felt it maintained interest through an effective Tarantino-esque intersection of characters and plenty of engaging dialog and an abundance of stimulating eye candy. Its focus is on character confrontation and interaction rather than the unveiling of the beginning, middle, and ending of a storyline, although it's a few of its story lines converge and resolve intriguingly. One segment shifts into voice-over narration by one of the characters; another segment suddenly shifts into another character's internal monologue, but I felt Gutiérrez handled these transitions effectively and they never seemed jarring; going with the flow of the film and its occasional style transitions, there is much to be absorbed out of this movie. For an independent film, Gutiérrez has attracted a notable A-list cast, including Carla Gugino (she happens to by Gutiérrez's wife, and has starred in about a dozen of his films), Danny Devito, Rosario Dawson, Josh Hartnett, Robert Forster, and Zachary Quinto, whose diverse stories intertwine and pass in the night as the characters interact between ten different L.A. bars during the course of one evening. Singer/songwriter Grant Lee Phillips supplies a folk-rock based soundtrack and has a brief role as a bar singer, performing a likeably cynical song written with Gutiérrez, called "Only Bad Can Come," that fits nicely into the mixture of story lines being conveyed. The film was the first feature film to be made specifically for internet distribution, although fortunately it's made its way onto DVD for non-streaming watchability.

this movie is small in many ways, the scope is to romanticize the movie by setting it mostly in bars. none of the characters develop in any way, and it seems like the producers have not spent any time in either bars or strip clubs. it was like how an 8th grader might imagine the nightlife of adults

having said that, the actor playing Henry is very charming, alexis bledel is her excruciatingly adorable self even when delivering some fairly awful lines, robert forster nailed his character, amber valletta is so beautiful it hurts even while dressed as a lesbian, and carla gugino's sensuality strides over the whole production

oddly the best part of the movie is the very modest little dance number at the end during the credits. the 3 actors dance with such charm and sincerity that you find yourself wishing you lead a life that served up gorgeous little moments of humanity like this.

but even that is sort of a flaw because it made you realize how much of a waste of time and talent and potential the preceding 90 minutes were

oh also emmanuelle chriqui in a very skimpy outfit gave this movie 2 extra stars