robert_johnston

I don't understand why this movie has attracted negative reviews. When I saw it the audience - including me - was laughing out loud. Sure, it isn't the cleverest film ever but it is unfailingly entertaining. The performances are great and the script is witty. The point is that Jerome can draw but is no great artist so from the beginning is never going to achieve his ambition to be Picasso. He is as much of a stereotype as everybody else. It is stated right from the start that everybody is a cliché - and ain't that the truth? We are all clichés. As Malkovich explains in the beginning art students are almost guaranteed disappointment. The audience isn't supposed to sympathise with Jerome - if you think you are then you have missed the point.

I find it hard to believe that this movie has provoked so much comment and analysis. I am sure Sidney Pollack didn't think he was making Citizen Kane here. Rather, this is a perfectly enjoyable, well-acted thriller with no pretensions to depth. Admittedly there are no big surprises, but it is well-crafted. And, as someone who feels instinctively anti-Nicole (sorry), it is always good to be reminded that she can actually act. More importantly, I think that - despite what some cynics have suggested - Pollack is brave in these PC days to show that feelings of national identity can transcend simple issues of colour or creed. Let's face it, there are white Africans who have just as much right to feel African as a second-generation Nigerian immigrant, say, to the US has the right to feel American, whatever his or her cultural, racial, whatever background may be. To suggest that one continent should be one colour while the rest of us enjoy the benefits of multi-culturalism is racist - even if it is by default. So good on Sidney - even if he may have had his eye on the box office rather than trying to make a moral point...

I totally agree with the above comments. This is a film you have to see. And - scarily - one that probably couldn't be made today, considering the commercial links between Hollywood and the US TV networks. What must surely have appeared to be intellectual cynicism in 1976, today looks more like a no-brainer observation on the seeming lack of morality of the world's most influential medium. That's not to say that admirable TV programming no longer exists, but the power of Network and the brilliance of the performances by Finch and Dunaway is to show how easily the race for ratings can lead to something far more sinister than simple entertainment. Reality TV? I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore.