Intriguing but deeply flawed thriller.
People I Know (2003)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:51
Fresh:22
Rotten:29
Average Rating:5.5/10
Consensus: The derivative plot fails to cohere or draw the viewer in.
Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Al Pacino transforms himself into former all-star publicist Eli Wurman in Dan Algrant's PEOPLE I KNOW. Wurman is a southern-born onetime mover and shaker who is at the end of his rope--and his... Al Pacino transforms himself into former all-star publicist Eli Wurman in Dan Algrant's PEOPLE I KNOW. Wurman is a southern-born onetime mover and shaker who is at the end of his rope--and his career. His last major client, Cary Launer (Ryan O'Neal), is an Oscar-winning actor who has Wurman clean up his messes for him; in this case, Wurman has to get drug-addled television host Jilli Hopper (Tea Leoni) out of jail and back to California. But a detour leads Wurman into a secret sex-and-drug den filled with the rich and powerful--and also gets him involved in murder. PEOPLE I KNOW shares its fast-paced, winner-take-all, back stabbing world with SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, which also tore apart New York City's hot publicity world. The eclectic cast does a fine job, with Pacino and Leoni standing out. Kim Basinger has a supporting role as Victoria Gray, Wurman's former sister-in-law who offers him the chance to retire to a quiet life on a ranch, but Wurman first has to pull off a politically controversial fundraiser that is making a lot of people upset. [More]
Starring: Al Pacino, Kim Basinger, Ryan O'Neal, Tea Leoni
Starring: Al Pacino, Kim Basinger, Ryan O'Neal, Tea Leoni, Bill Nunn, Richard Schiff, Sophie Dahl, Mark Webber, Robert Klein, David Marshall Grant, Jon Hendricks
Director: Dan Algrant
Director: Dan Algrant
Screenwriter: Jon Robin Baitz
Producer: Michael Nozik, Leslie Urdang, Karen Tenkoff
Composer: Terence Blanchard
Studio: Miramax Films
Reviews for People I Know
Pacino unleashes every trick in his actor's bag... The accent alone batters us into the back of the theater, making us want to go home.
It was filmed in and around the World Trade Center, and the subsequent cuts, reshoots and sleights of hand designed to obscure that fact prove devastating.
[Starts] off like a B-version of Sweet Smell of Success before ending like a C-version of The Parallax View.
People I Know hits the mark with its sophisticated depiction of a worn-out PR agent desperately trying to find a way to redeem his sad and sorry life.
While the film is perhaps a bit too talky, it's so fiendishly insightful that it keeps us hooked.
Worth watching for Pacino's hollow-eyed, full-bodied performance and for the strong supporting cast surrounding him.
People I Know rests not at the bottom of that pile, not at the top, but just out of range of significance, to be forgotten the minute the audience’s back is turned.
Dropped into this ocean of bathos, even Al can't tread water -- at that precise moment, he and his performance drown.
A character-study-in- constant-motion, with a little murder on the side -- and because that character is played by Pacino, it often fascinates.
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