An excessively melodrama story filled with cliches about writing.
Comment
03/29/06
Ask the Dust (2005)
37
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:101
Fresh:37
Rotten:64
Average Rating:5.1/10
Consensus: Though Hayek is luminous, Farrell seems miscast, and the film fails to capture the gritty, lively edginess of the book upon which it's based.
Runtime: 1 hr 56 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: From the director of CHINATOWN comes a tale of small-town dreams and big-city challenges. Colin Farrell plays a down-and-out writer in 1930s L.A. who dreams of making it big, and Salma Hayek plays... [More]
Starring: Colin Farrell, Salma Hayek, Donald Sutherland, Eileen Atkins
Director: Robert Towne
Reviews for Ask the Dust
In "Ask the Dust" you get to see Farrell and Hayek cavorting naked in the waves of the Pacific.
03/28/06
[Director Robert Towne] may have been passionate about the project but that passion does not materialize on the screen.
03/26/06
(Towne's) recreation of 1931 Los Angeles is stunning...(but) the movie itself (is) glacially slow and boring.
03/25/06
Click to read the article
03/25/06
Towne's script somehow can never put us in his hero's mind, his actions are always incomprehensible and we never get close enough to the man to give a hoot what happens to him.
03/25/06
Who would have guessed that Robert Towne, the writer of Chinatown, could make a movie as awful as Ask the Dust? It has it all -- one-dimensional characters, one-dimensional set and idiotically arch dialogue.
03/24/06
Ask the Dust has occasional lapses in energy, sagging noticeably about the two-thirds mark. Still, it rallies in the final reel, generating enough emotion to move filmgoers.
03/24/06
The overwrought performances by Farrell and Hayek, in a no-holds-barred duel of eyebrows, turn this heat-drenched drama into unintentional comedy.
03/24/06
Widely known as a script doctor, Towne could have used one himself in bringing Fante's story to the screen.
03/24/06
Utterly forgettable.
03/24/06
The film is an overwrought mess that you'd almost swear was a parody if you didn't know better.
03/24/06
Fante's novel comes to the screen as if dipped in butterscotch: Its abrasive surface has been coated with a golden, sticky glow.
03/24/06
You get to see Hayek naked, and Ask The Dust still doesn't seem worth the price of admission!
03/23/06
Ask the Dust is one of the most eagerly awaited cinematic projects of 2006, which may be why it lands with such a curious thud.
03/23/06
So hazy and uncertain, it's more musty curio than must-see ... Farrell couldn't play introspective if he were doing the role on a psychiatrist's couch.
03/23/06
The details add up to a story, but it's not cohesive and fluid enough to be engaging. How are we supposed to love the characters when we never understand their behavior?
03/23/06
Difficult to swallow are the heavy-handed narrative developments that dominate the film's second half.
03/22/06
Stay clear of movies [like this one] that are cast more for star power than for matches with the characters.
03/22/06
Eventually, I was on the edge of my seat... wondering what kind of wrong choice Towne could possibly make next.
03/21/06
What’s Hot On RT
Other News
Fresh Links
Featured
RT on YouTube 
Subscribe to RT's YouTube channel and don't miss a second of our cracking video content.
RT on Twitter
Follow Rotten Tomatoes and join us as we tweet about the week's releases.
IGN RSS Feeds