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Movies / On DVD / Don't Come Knocking
Don't Come Knocking

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Don't Come Knocking (2006)

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Reviews Counted:99

Fresh:42

Rotten:57

Average Rating:5.4/10

Consensus: The cinematography conjures beautifully evocative landscapes, but aside from that, the film is meandering and pointless.

Rated: 15 [See Full Rating] for language and brief nudity

Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:28-04-2006

Synopsis: When he was younger he was a movie star, mostly in Westerns. At the age of sixty, Howard uses drugs, alcohol and young girls to avoid the painful truth that there are only supporting roles left for... When he was younger he was a movie star, mostly in Westerns. At the age of sixty, Howard uses drugs, alcohol and young girls to avoid the painful truth that there are only supporting roles left for him to play. After yet another night of debauchery in his trailer, Howard awakens in disgust to find that he is still alive, but that nobody in the world would have missed him if he had died. Howard gallops away on his movie horse in full cowboy regalia; fleeing from the film and his life. At an old train station, Howard trades in his costume for the shabby clothes of an old ranch hand (James Gammon) and travels to Elko, Nevada, the place that he ran away from years before and where his 80 year-old mother (Eva Marie Saint) still lives. Mom takes him in and treats him as if he were still a boy. Perhaps Mom realizes that Howard is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Meanwhile, the film shoot that Howard has abandoned is in chaos over his absence. The insurance company hires a private detective, Sutter (Tim Roth), to find Howard. Mom tells Howard that more than twenty years ago a young woman called her up trying to locate Howard. Mom figured that the girl was pregnant. Howard is shocked at the thought that he has a grown child somewhere. This child could be a ray of hope, a possible salvation from his narcissistic and meaningless life. When Sutter appears in Elko, reminding Howard of the reality he has escaped from, he flees again, this time to find his child. His destination is Butte, Montana, the location twenty-five years earlier where Howard shot the movie that made him a star. It was also where he had an affair with Doreen (Jessica Lange) who then, and now, is the waitress at the local coffee shop. She has a son, Earl (Gabriel Mann), a rock musician and singer living in Butte with his girlfriend Amber (Fairuza Balk). Howard's meeting with Earl is violent and unsettling. Earl completely rejects this unknown father who appears too late in his life. Saddened by this encounter, Howard is ready to give up and leave Butte again, when out of nowhere a young woman named Sky (Sarah Polley) appears. She is exactly the same age as Earl. She is, in fact, Howard's child, the product of another short fling that happened during the filming of the same movie. She is Earl's half-sister. These siblings do not know about each other. That's when the real complications of this American family reunion begin... --© Sony Pictures Classics [More]

Starring: Sam Shepard, Jessica Lange, Tim Roth, Gabriel Mann

Starring: Sam Shepard, Jessica Lange, Tim Roth, Gabriel Mann, Fairuza Balk, Sarah Polley, Eva Marie Saint, Mike Butters, James Gammon, Marley Shelton, Julia Sweeney, Tom Farrell, Kurt Fuller, Majandra Del Fino, Marieh Delfino

Director: Wim Wenders

Director: Wim Wenders
Screenwriter: Sam Shepard
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics

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Reviews for Don't Come Knocking

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

[It has] a terrific sense of place, something missing from much contemporary US cinema.

Full Review Source: Sight and Sound | comment Comment
09/28/06
Richard Falcon
Richard Falcon
Sight and Sound

By the time we get to the point where the camera is endlessly circling Shepard sitting on a sofa in the middle of the street, it feels as if he and his director were making things up as they went along.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
06/24/06
Geoff Andrew
Geoff Andrew
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Don't Come Knocking might have been better in the hands of a less self-conscious director, but it's nonetheless a captivating drama.

Full Review Source: FilmFocus | comment Comment
05/06/06
Joe Utichi
Joe Utichi
FilmFocus

Superb supporting performances from Polley and Baulk go some way to making up for our hero's lesser qualities.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
05/06/06
Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Sam Shepard, an actor of increasingly bimbo-ish narcissism, gives another tiresome, cowboy-hat-wearing performance in a monumentally boring and conceited film.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
05/06/06
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Provocative and haunting, but as a moviegoing experience, it's rather elusive.

Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | comment Comment
05/06/06
Rich Cline
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

The dusty backdrop evokes a palpable sense of transience and the lingering past, but there's ultimately very little beneath the gesturing.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
05/06/06
Stella Papamichael
Stella Papamichael
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

An engaging drama with strong performances and gorgeous photography, this a minor return to form for director Wim Wenders.

Full Review Source: ViewLondon | comment Comment
04/27/06
Matthew Turner
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

The bitterness of the playwright's vision is expanded by the director's fascinated fondness for American culture

Full Review Source: CinePassion | comment Comment
08/30/09
Fernando F. Croce
Fernando F. Croce
CinePassion
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix | comment Comment
04/23/09
Peter Keough
Peter Keough
Boston Phoenix

Apart from an extraordinary scene of attempted reconciliation between Shepard and Lange "Don't Come Knocking" is an inflated drama that lies stagnate on the screen.

Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | comment Comment
04/20/09
Cole Smithey
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review | comment Comment
08/07/08
Jonathan Kiefer
Jonathan Kiefer
Sacramento News & Review

hardly Wenders' most adventurous feature, although perhaps his bravest, dramatising not only the director's undoubted influence on the last 20 years of indie cinema, but also his increasing redundancy within it.

Full Review Source: Eye for Film | comment Comment
07/04/07
Anton Bitel
Anton Bitel
Eye for Film

full review in Greek

Full Review Source: Movies for the Masses | comment Comment
10/03/06
Joseph Proimakis
Joseph Proimakis
Movies for the Masses

Wim Wenders y Sam Shepard (Paris, Texas) recuperan (en excelente fotografía y mejor música) una iconografía norteamericana al servicio de una historia sobre el desarraigo y la necesidad de recuperar vínculos largamente perdidos.

Full Review Source: Uruguay Total | comment Comment
08/26/06
Enrique Buchichio
Enrique Buchichio
Uruguay Total

... is so meandering it can make a sober viewer into a drunk.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
08/24/06
Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

The widescreen visual poetry of "Don't Come Knocking" seems less like inspiration and more like overcompensation.

Full Review Source: Capital Times (Madison, WI) | comment Comment
07/06/06
Rob Thomas
Rob Thomas
Capital Times (Madison, WI)

The story, jointly cooked up, is reasonable, if not their best, but Shepard's screenplay is a real disappointment, failing to lock into gear at any time.

Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | comment Comment
06/28/06
Urban Cinefile Critics
Urban Cinefile Critics
Urban Cinefile

...the long-awaited reunion of writer-actor Sam Shepard and German filmmaker Wim Wenders yields only mixed results.

Full Review Source: Denton Record Chronicle (TX) | comment Comment
06/12/06
Todd Jorgenson
Todd Jorgenson
Denton Record Chronicle (TX)

Emotionally arid and narratively lazy, the film is so tentative it seems to be evaporating before our very eyes.

Full Review Source: Kansas City Star | comment Comment
06/02/06
Robert W. Butler
Robert W. Butler
Kansas City Star
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Latest News for Don't Come Knocking

March 09, 2006: South By Southwest Festival Starts Friday
The annual South by Southwest film and music festival kicks off on Friday. Held in Austin, TX, SXSW will showcase 150 feature films and 130 shorts, including the regional... More...

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