Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

cricketbat Defending Your Life offers a very unique outlook on the afterlife. I'd never heard of this film before, but I was quite impressed. It is a little dated in fashion, technology and humor, but it still will make you smile - and make you think. I don't know why this movie didn't get more publicity.

serafinogm This movie should have been the denouement of Albert Brooks advancement as an actor. He was terrific, he was real, he was believable, he was entertaining, he had arrived and everything was just going to get better, yet it never happened. Sure he has been successful and he's experienced a degree of success that the majority of us (in particular me) could only dream about but his laid back witty, effortless acting style appears not to have caught fire, now the both of us are 69 and unless either of us can pull something out of a hat (never happen for me) our pinnacles are behind us and it's all down hill from here. Despite what has occurred to Albert's acting career this movie is a must see and it has the terrific Meryl Streep, as well as Rip Torn, Lee Grant, and Buck Henry (quite the cast). Watch this film and I promise you'll enjoy it, it's time well spent and the ending sequence is a tear jerker! Oh and Albert is far and away the reason this film is so enjoyable! He's a hoot! I discovered this film bombed at the box office, I am quite pleased that, in my small way, I helped pad the numbers!

Kirpianuscus an useful film. this is, maybe, its the most important virtue. because it could impress you. or change you. because it is a so beautiful love story than it has the virtue to be sweet and wise and helpful lesson about the meaning of love, happiness and right decisions. because it is a real inspired speech about the after life. sure, not credible for a part of public. but useful for reflect about decisions and words and gestures. short, a film like an oasis. and discover of new significance for the colors and the links between us and the others. short - a lovely film.

siukong Defending Your Life has a somewhat promising concept: when you die, you have to defend your life in order to see if you "move onward" or have to return to Earth for a do-over. Unfortunately, it misses too many notes in the execution of this concept, and suffers from major problems of tone and balance between the comedy and the serious.The workings of Judgement City, the trial process, and the afterlife as presented here don't make much sense from a logical standpoint (there are so many issues I had with it that I won't even go into them). Maybe we're meant to forgive the problems for comedy's sake, but the humour feels too sparse to do that. Some of it is effective, but many of the sight gags fall flat or just feel cheap. Or maybe the viewer is supposed to dwell on the inconsistencies and what profound meaning they might conceal from us "little-brains" (yet another perpetuation of that silly '10% of our brain' myth). Perhaps that works for others, but I find contemplating the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything to be dissonant with watching a guy in a white muumuu shuffle around in generic hotels and office complexes while making mildly clever quips and undergoing a sham of a 'trial'.Brooks and Streep have pretty good chemistry, but their romance does feel superficial and a little rushed, and the ending where he overcomes his fears to come chasing after her is too pat.Final summary: Uneven life-after-death film that fails both as a comedy and as an inspirational thought-provoker. 3/10 | D