Simpatico

Vinnie Webb (Nick Nolte), Lyle (Jeff Bridges) and Rosie Carter (Sharon Stone) were very good friends many years back and used to scam at races. Fast forward to 20 years and they all took different roads; Vinnie looks like a hobo with drinking problems and can't even pay his rent, Lyle and Rosie are divorced but are about to sell their prize stallion Simpatico. After Vinnie manages to steal Lyle's wallet unknown to him, he goes to Kentucky for blackmail an official that uncovers their past scams.

In the first half SIMPATICO looked decent but as it progressed, it became confusing and dull. At times Vinnie's motives looked unclear while Lyle spent most of his time shouting, and the scene where Rosie rides Simpatico for the last time and then shoots him... why they had to put it? It was also badly edited and not likeable. Nolte, Bridges and Stone give their best with the material given, but they surely deserved better than this. And everything else about the film is just as forgettable.

Not a terrible movie but very bland instead, just like eating toast: not that bad but something nobody would ever look forward to.

Tale of long-past racing scam resurfacing to change the diverse lives of its perpetrators and victims isn't particularly subtle, with transformations and transferences flying around like abandoned betting slips, but it's very well acted by a dream cast (no less engaging for the fact that they don't all seem to be in quite the same film) and never loses its basic finesse. In its early stretches, as the pieces of the plot fall into place, the film builds a highly effective sense of escalating jeopardy, and the initial gambits on the theme of identity and impermanence are effective, leveling out a bit as thematic considerations seem to overtake the characters. Still, it has a sleek poise, and debuting director Warchus shows a distinct nose for the finish line - the film's closing scenes seem about right on their own terms, even if you're not sure about all the stuff that led you there (the horse Simpatico for instance seems ultimately to be carrying more symbolic weight than the course of the film supports).

When 5 past Oscar nominees headline a movie, naturally, one would have rather high expectations. Such is the case with `Simpatico' a high-profile drama which went by relatively un-noticed when it was released 3 or 4 years ago. But I am surprised that it only received a 4.4 rating on the IMDb. I'm not saying that the film was a classic or deserved enormous critical plaudits, but I definitely think that it deserved more than that. It is an adaptation of the stage play written by Sam Shepard. While it starts out promising, it is also surprisingly bland when it reaches the conclusion.

But the main problem is the lack of simple definition. It's hard to tell if this is a simple story, or a more complex one. It's unclear whether this is a film about friends reconciling or friends being torn apart by guilt. The film tries going both ways, but the result is a puzzling one to say the least. One thing that it avoids doing is falling into plot-holes, becoming predictable or using average movie clichés. This is done by creating thoroughly flawed but also very compelling characters that certainly aren't your average stereotypes. And they are lifted off paper by exceptional performances from the three Oscar nominated lead players.

Nick Nolte (Affliction, The Prince of Tides) gives yet another top-notch performance as the untrustworthy hobo. Jeff Bridges (The Last Picture Show, The Contender) is also very good as his polar opposite- the eccentric millionaire. About two-thirds the way through the movie, the two main character switch places for no apparent reason. It doesn't make logical sense why a millionaire would choose to live like a bum, just because someone stole his wallet. Both actors are better and more believable in their opening personas.

Sharon Stone (Casino) makes her first appearance in the movie at about the halfway mark. It's a shame she didn't appear earlier, because it's surprising how convincing she is as the rich and wrecked housewife. She's so far away from the icy sex-goddess of `Basic Instinct' it's hard to believe that this is the same actress. Albert Finney (Tom Jones, Erin Brockovich) makes great support, but Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich) gives the blandest and most over-rated performance. Not only is her part boring and un-necessary, but she even over-acts in certain scenes.

Unfortunately, there are some evident flaws scattered around here and there. The `big twist' is uninteresting and it's ironic that Sharon Stone and Jeff Bridges are never on the screen at the same time- After all, their characters are supposed to be husband and wife! But the brilliant acting alone makes `Simpatico' qualify as a good if un-remarkable movie. The script is below average and sometimes the movie ventures into blandness, but most other aspects are good as expected. My IMDb rating: 6.1/10.

I like Jeff Bridges tremendously, so I'll watch anything with him in. But this film has so many loose ends, you could make a ragrug.

Good acting by all, but a good dollop of suspension of disbelief is necessary with so many unlikely events or inconclusive nuances of the plot. Vinnie and his girlfriend checking into the same hotel and not knowing it. What was that all about? And what was Carter arranging with Simms anyway even before Vinnie turns up from the past?

The central premise seemed to be Simms's reconciliation with the past - forgive and forget. Very good, but this wasn't developed enough. Okay Carter throws it all away through guilt and wants the simple life again. But it's not believable. They can't be nineteen again.

It should have been filmed in the European style - slow and ponderous would have been so much better. But this version is too clipped and compromised with modern moviegoers tastes. Stone is very very good. Nice to see Nolte in rags again, it's his forte. Jeff is sleepwalking though. New girl terrific. Does she go back to Vinnie in the end or go with Simms? I think it's back to Vinnie. It almost works - I like movies that exercise the mind and leave loose ends to speculate on. But without the basic substance, loose ends is all Simpatico has.

Somewhere buried deep inside the mess that is `Simpatico' there lurk the makings of a pretty decent little love story. Unfortunately, one would have to eliminate pretty much the entire main storyline and all the major characters in order to find it.

This tale of `three people caught in a web of their own making' is so thoroughly inept, overwrought and inconsequential that it seems more like a parody of film noir than a serious entry in the genre. The crime that these three people perpetrated in their youth – the one that keeps coming back to haunt them in their approaching middle-age - seems a piddling one at best for a film of this type. An even more serious problem is that the three lead performers seem stuck in roles that have come to define their métier as actors. Nick Nolte, for instance, plays his customary down-and-out, barely-teetering-on-the-edge-of-sanity middle aged loser whose capricious nature makes him forever a threat to the security of the group, while Jeff Bridges portrays the common sense, constantly put-upon ringleader who just wants to forget all about the past but who has a hard time keeping a leash on the unpredictable Nolte. Sharon Stone completes the trio as Bridges' now moody, alcoholic wife – a pale imitation of her much more meaty role in Martin Scorcease's `Casino.' Stone's over-the-top thespian simpering reduces the (fortunately) few scenes she is in to the level of unintentional high comedy. Moreover, in their attempt to provide a dual level structure to their tale – crosscutting scenes of the past with scenes of the present – the filmmakers have been forced to employ actors who look nothing like their contemporary counterparts. The result is, initially, confusing and, ultimately, quite ludicrous.

What is most strange about `Simpatico' is that, while the story itself fizzles and the audience could care less what happens to these three whining, puling, muking central characters, writer/director Matthew Warchus and co-author David Nicholls somehow manage to create a back story and two minor characters who engage both our sympathy and our interest. These come in the form of the always splendid Albert Finney as the man our intrepid band of halfwit con men managed to entrap into an extortion scheme twenty years earlier, and the charming Catherine Keener as the highly principled grocery store cashier who finds herself unwittingly a pawn in Bridges' plot to rein Nolte in. Finney and Keener provide so much warmth and humanity in their few scenes together that we find ourselves regretting that the film does not revolve around them entirely. Wisely, after we wheeze our way through all the hullabaloo and nonsense necessary to bring the main plot to its ludicrous conclusion, Warchus closes the film with a coda focused on these two winning characters. The finale, in some inexplicable way, seems more like a beginning than an ending and we find ourselves wanting to see what happens to this offbeat, likeable couple. By wasting our time concentrating on the Nolte/Bridges/Stone triumvirate of insipidity, the filmmakers end up making us feel even more resentful in the long run. Like the victims of the trio's racetrack shenanigans, we feel robbed!