L'affrontement

The narrative line of the script is scattered and seems to pick up ideas and problems and then drop them without resolution to tackle some other tangential issue. The issues all pertain to the relationship between the father and son but it would have been better to focus more on their interaction and less on exterior forces. Benson tries in the lead but just is not that strong of a screen presence especially when competing with Newman's star power. The rest of the cast is certainly talented even if what they are handed character wise is diffuse. It is interesting to see some like Freeman and Barkin who went on to long careers just starting out. Not a bad film but very average.

For a kid from the posh suburb of Shaker Heights, Ohio Paul Newman has a remarkable affinity for playing blue collar men. This is a guy who knows the value of hard work and it's his greatest disappointment in life is that he hasn't passed on that value to his children, Katherine Borowitz and Robby Benson.

It's Benson who Newman worries the most about. He wants to be a writer, but that just doesn't happen over night. One has to get out into the world and acquire a little life experience to learn what one wants to write about. The only one that didn't apply to was Emily Dickinson. Benson cites Hemingway as getting rejected 300 times before getting some money for his thoughts. But there certainly was a man who had himself a lot of life experience and earned a few dollars to pay his own way.

I could understand Newman very well since I came from a family of uncles just like Newman on my mother's side. I could understand Benson less so since all he wants is surf and sex. He tries working at some dead end jobs, his scenes with Morgan Freeman at a cardboard box factory and trying to repossess Ossie Davis's car are his best in the film.

In fact Newman's tragedy is that health issues cause him to stop working and he won't acknowledge them.

But it's Newman and Benson that's the heart of Harry&Son. Father and son Keach come to a kind of understanding toward the end. The film is not the best from either Newman or Benson, but nothing to be ashamed of here.

Paul Newman plays Harry Keach , a father who has been widowed for two years , who works as a demolition crane operator . He loses his hub due to a medical condition and finds himself battling his son and other personal demons .

When you think of Paul Newman films you don't think of Harry & Son and for good reason . This overlong , melodramatic film , directed by Newman is definitely not his best work .

It's nearly two hours of nothing much which ends extremely abruptly . Almost as if they ran out of money!

It definitely has the feel of a TV movie but actually wasn't .

Newman , unsurprisingly is the best thing about this film along with his real life wife , Joanne Woodward , but I haven't addressed the elephant in the room yet and that's Robby Benson who plays Howard , the son.

What a terrible actor ! He prances around looking like a cheep John Travolta, in a pair of shorts that should be on a twelve year old boy , flashing his eyelashes and whispering every line as if he's trying to be Brando . The worst thing is he has a massive amount of screen time as well .

He really is appalling and it's no wonder I've never seen him In anything since.

It was interesting to see a young Morgan Freeman in a small cameo and Wilfred Brimley whois criminally underused.

Unless you are a massive Paul Newman fan ( and I am ) , then I wouldn't bother .

The reason I have such fond memories of this movie is because I remember how I felt (and still do - but it's not the same as the first time) the first time I saw it on video, in maybe 1993, and the feelings it provoked in me.

I graduated from high school in 1984, the year the film was made, and my mother had passed away earlier in 1979, leaving me to grow up after 13 years of age with my father and younger sister. My older brother was soon to go into the Air Force, and my older sister was already away to college. While there were many differences between Paul Newman's character and my own father, the fundamental relationship he had with Robby Benson was right on the mark with me and my father. My father died when I was 26, in 1993. I think that Robby Benson's character was a few years younger when his dad in the movie died, but it was close enough to hit home with me. I, like the Benson character, was a little aimless after high school, and my father did seem to have more patience with me at times, he could give me some harsh input at other times. And my father went for 10 years without dating anyone after my mother passed away, but towards the end of his life he did find a woman that he had a lot of fun with, and we all did things together at times as well. My father was also about the same age as Newman's character when he died, and I was present right after he had his final heart attack and died at home.

Now that I have explained some similarities with my life and the movie, I'll get back to why I liked the movie so much. It wasn't because of the coincidental similarities between my life and the movie, but because my life is real, and many people have many of these same basic father-son dynamics, and the writers(half Newman), actors (big part Newman), and director (Newman again)somehow pulled off an amazing dose of reality with this film that is common to all of us. Newman just commits himself so honestly. He has that seriousness in his character that at times is how many capable, grounded, but real fathers are; sometimes mixes it up with a humor that is just as honest and bold, maybe even irreverent, and then other times when they're with their sons and they have a 'comradery'. And then other times when fathers are just plain irritated, and the son knows he's on his father's bad side at the moment, and he should be worried, but he also knows that his father is a softy down deep. However a son would never challenge him and expect that soft side, and the son also instinctively knows that his father isn't perfect but he is much wiser than the him, and he certainly knows the father really does love him and has the son's best interests at heart.

To summarize, first of all the performances in this movie are of a Team who were in touch with the bareness and essence of our life, of our American society and family reality. And then secondly, they somehow manage to give it back to us for us all to see on the screen, and allow us to see ourselves in a new and deeper way. I understand myself and my relationship with my father, and his relationship with me, a little better because of this movie. And that is the goal of any art, and should be the goal of people intending to make good movies. Because this movie taught me so much, I have to say that it I value it is a great movie, it (the whole Team) delivered what might be expected from the title and beyond; it was heart breaking and heart warming, it was meaningful, and I had fun watching it!. Thanks to the whole Team, but a very special thanks to Paul Newman!

Pat Wilson

Paul Newman wanted to make a film inspired by his troubled relationship with his own son. Scott Newman, 28, died in 1978 from an overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol. Newman, the film's director, co-producer and co-writer wanted Gene Hackman to play the lead role. However, the studio insisted that Newman also star as the father. Robbie Benson is fine as Newman's distant son. I was in Fort Lauderdale when Harry & Son was being filmed. It created some excitement when Paul Newman walked into a sandwich shop and ordered his takeout lunch.