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Factotum (2006)
Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor, Didier Flamand, Fisher Stevens, Adrienne Shelly
Screenwriter: Bent Hamer, Jim Stark
Producer: Jim Stark
Composer: Kristin Asbjornsen
DVD Info
Release:
Feb 12, 2008
DVD Features:
- Keep Case
- Widescreen - 1.85
Audio:
- [unspecified] - English
Additional Release Material:
- Featurettes - 1. Making-of
- 2. Deleted Scenes (8)
Reviews
A character who would be treated as an unlovable or tragic figure almost anywhere else emerges here as a hero of self-expression.
The film may be modest in its ambitions -- but achieves just as much anyway. Just terrific.
An intoxicating comedy based on the writings of cult author Charles Bukowski.
An arthouse movie version of seediness--a bit more muted, engaging and beautiful than real life.
Will not please devotees of narrative closure, but it's a must for anyone who lives by our hero's credo: 'If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't try at all.'
This portrait of an artist as a young sot reels and swaggers towards some kind of redemptive conclusion but, in a truly bold move on the part of the filmmakers, never quite gets there.
Factotum isn't for everybody, certainly not the abstentious. But there's no denying it, Chinaski appeals to our inner anarchist.
Dillon delivers with a cocky denseness that is at once hilarious and poignant...
The transplant didn't take in Barfly, and it works no better here in Factotum. In each case, the baying of the boozehounds just seems repetitious and banal -- the noise endures but the joy is gone.
Bleak-ish, inebriated and quite exhilarating in the full-on Bukowski fashion.
Quite dull, truth be told. As good as Dillon and Taylor are in their roles, making us side with them even as we despise them, there's not a whole lot that happens in a life ruled by the bottle, the butt and the shag.
It's not a great film but it might seem great because it does justice to the life force of an exceptional man who had something to say about not being mediocre.
At its best when it taps into the allure of indolence: The almost scandalous feeling of freedom that comes from sitting on a barstool in midafternoon, without a job, a schedule or responsibilities.
Dillon is play(s) ... still and deep but with a suggestion of a kind of social autism that prevents Hank from succeeding at even the most modest level of human enterprise.
A more apt title for this film might be - Alcoholic writers who can't hold a job and the low-life women who love them.
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