A Glimpse Inside the Mind of 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 helps when you are not sober when watching this out of whack cheesy flick, directed by the son of the all time great Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather). Roman Coppola even starred (as a little curly boy) in the all time classic The Godfather, but Roman has mostly been making music videos while wearing Italian clothes and he hasnt inherited the talent his father had to tell a coherent story, because this movie is all over the place, but in a good cheesy way...

A story about heartbreak, starring the ultimate friendly whacko Charlie Sheen, who is still so cool, calm and collected as ever before. Terrific supporting roles by Bill Murray and Patricia Arquette. Great soundtrack. Wacky photography. And filmsets and props that are to die for!

Best consumed when one is NOT sober...

The last time I was baffled by a film to this degree I had just sat through Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou, a film to this day I can not extract anything from. Ironically, Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, the director of A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III have worked on a few projects together and, possibly as a result, the film feels half-baked, incomplete, and inherently maddening, doing one of things that Wes Anderson did as well but at least in a somewhat bearable manner; draw its events brighter and more noticeable than the characters involved in them.

Our title character is played by Charlie Sheen, who presumably filmed this around that time where he wasn't a media figure for his outspoken drug use any longer and he was pretty much disregarded by all the public too as yesterday's news. I assume that because I'm sure it this film would've been swarmed with publicity at the time of its production, because anything Sheen seemed to do, rather it was create a Twitter account or make a disposable statement made headlines.

Sheen embodies without a doubt, the weirdest character of his career; an inconsistent graphic designer who has just been left by the love of his moment Ivana (Katheryn Winnick), and is feeling mixed emotions, frequenting suffering from terrors and surrealist fever dreams. His reality becomes twisted and indistinct, as things do not seem to have a time-frame and characters pop in and out with no rhyme or reason.

This is one of the least consistent films I've seen in a long time. A subplot, if you can call it that because the story's main plot isn't even worthy of the description of a plot, involved Jason Schwartzman's Kirby, an aspiring musician, who wants Charles to make him an album cover, but both men lack inspiration in their clearly eclectic lives.

I can't help but feel that this was the movie that Wes Anderson dreamed up but quickly abandoned when he discovered the plot didn't go anywhere quickly. Anderson is known for concocting whimsical setups, an immensely quirky environment, and framing and articulating his films' settings with impenetrable beauty and artistry. What he often neglects, although this hasn't been seen recently with his newest films The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom, is his characterization and situations, which are often underdeveloped or simply archetypes we have a difficult time feeling for. Writer/director/producer Coppola continues to persistently throw set pieces, situations, and stunt casting at the story, none of it generating any true excitement or nourishment for his audience members. The whole film plays as one long, tedious, incoherent stage show that goes nowhere quickly and doesn't seem to care.

Yet through all the mundane setups and unworthy payoffs, I found enjoyment in this film, mainly coming from Sheen, who is a charming screen presence here, playing a womanizing character, with a bit more of a heart and attitude than the usual snobs. But his character is still an undeveloped archetype we feel almost nothing for. And when the film gives us a maddening ending that breaks the fourth wall, we feel that either Coppola couldn't fittingly end the story or he simply got tired of the material.

A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III is, to put it simply, a mess of sizable proportions. If the film had turned its quirkiness meter about six notches down, and put as much heavy focus on its story continuity and characters as it does with detail and look, there would be a film here with some trajectory and formation rather than just scene after scene of disposable weirdness. I read that Roman Coppola hopes that those who have suffered through a bad breakup in the past or have been through rough relationships could sympathize with Charles Swan III. I'd believe that after they see this film, they'll feel that relationships are a waste of time and should get back to work.

Starring: Charlie Sheen, Jason Schwartzman, Katheryn Winnick, Bill Murray, Aubrey Plaza, Patricia Arquette, Dermot Mulroney, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Directed by: Roman Coppola.

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.

"Maybe someone hurt me, you ever think of that, maybe someone hurt me." Charles Swan III (Sheen) is having a bad day. His girlfriend just broke up with him and he has a near death experience. When he wakes up in the hospital he begins to go over what happened. This is a very hard movie to review. It was very bizarre but OK. The only real way to review this is that the movie was written and directed by Roman Coppola. While this is his first real movie he has directed he helped to write Moonrise Kingdom and Darjeeling Limited. The movie has a type of a Wes Anderson feel to it so if you like his type of comedy then you will like this. If you don't get or don't like his humor then I would avoid this. That is really the only thing I can say about this movie. Overall, not bad but really made for a specific audience. I give it a B-.