Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Mike B Quirky stuff here!! If you like oddball, this movie could appeal to you.Well-written and great musical accompaniment. John Turtorro does a Woody Allen – and does it well! It's a great assortment of extreme characters – particularly the women, from Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara who play unrepressed hotties - to Vanessa Paradis who plays a repressed Hasidic Jewish woman. So there is a lot going on – and it definitely gets your attention. And it's never predictable! And really I don't quite know the point of the film – religion represses women could be one. Be prepared there are a lot of surprising antics!

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) If you have seen trailers or advertising for this film, they may have almost exclusively focused on Woody Allen just like it was for me. However, the main player behind "Fading Gigolo" ("Suddenly Gigolo") is John Turturro. He directed it, he wrote it and he plays the central character Fioravante. It sure takes a lot of guts to write a character described by women as a top stud between the sheets and then cast yourself for that role. I knew him mostly from his performance on the TV show "Monk", which brought him an Emmy as the title character's brother. Of course he was also in "Barton Fink" and many more. Apart from Allen and Turturro, Vanessa Paradis (mostly known for her longtime relationship with Johnny Depp) plays the female main role. Supporting players are Sofia Vergara ("Modern Family"), Liev Schreiber ("Ray Donovan") and Sharon Stone ("Casino"), the two ladies being actually typecast for roles that do not look too different than some of their work in the past.The best part of the film was probably Allen playing a pimp. He brought the comedic highlights of the movie while Paradis was responsible for the dramatic highlights. Turturro I am not so sure what to think of his performance. I felt it was a bit empty and for the most of the film, he was just there and I wasn't really impacted by his actions. Just like he directed it, I felt all the interesting things in this film had not too much to do with him. If you are nice, you could say, he was quietly convincing. Anyway back to Allen, if some more people had actually seen this film, he may have even been in consideration for a Supporting Actor nomination at the Oscars. But he doesn't care anyway, so it's fine I guess. There was one scene where his character makes a quote about competition, which was pretty funny given Allen's long history of absence at award ceremonies.One of the most interesting things here is how all the women admired the name Fioravante as he must be some great Italian lover and the one he actually likes doesn't even know his name. The ending I am not sure what to think of or if I liked it. Obviously, Paradis' character only saw him as a helper to her grief and all of a sudden, she was ready to marry Schreiber's character? It came all out of nowhere and felt pretty weird to me. I don't need a happy end, but if it is unhappy, it has to be at least somewhat credible and I did not think it was. At least they avoided the usual drama when she finds out what he actually does. And the very final scene, with the other lady was pretty insignificant too. It felt only included to make the viewer leave the theater with a smile, but it did not fit at all in relation to everything what happened before. Paradis and Turturro seemed to have good chemistry, so I would have preferred a happy ending in this case I think.One real highlight where the dialogs between Fioravante and his pimp. Well, actually it was mostly the pimp talking all the time. I also liked the music (including Dean Martin's "Sway"), but as a whole I would really only recommend this one to Woody Allen completionists.

Lee Eisenberg John Turturro steps behind the camera, casting himself as a male prostitute and Woody Allen as his pimp. "Fading Gigolo" also looks at the mores of New York's Hasidic community (some of which sound like ideas from the Taliban). Allen's character is his usual self, while Turturro's clients - played by Sharon Stone and Sofía Vergara - remind one of Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate".The main thing that I took from this movie is that Woody Allen does best when he simply tries to be funny. His movies got boring when he started focusing on neurotic rich people (don't even get me started on the god-awful "Everyone Says I Love You"). Although "Fading Gigolo" depicts such people, it's more of a satirical portrayal. Also, Allen does well in movies directed by other people: there's this one plus "What's New, Pussycat?", "Casino Royale", "The Front" and "Company Man". You'll like this one.I'd like to see Woody Allen make a horror flick. He would play a nebbish fleeing zombies (likely played by scream queens Adrienne Barbeau, Linnea Quigley, Jamie Lee Curtis, etc), and telling people that the zombies aren't as scary as producers who think that commercials qualify as art.

SnoopyStyle Murray Schwartz (Woody Allen) is forced to close his rare books store which his grandfather started. His dermatologist Dr. Parker (Sharon Stone) tells him that she and her girlfriend Selima (Sofía Vergara)want to experience a ménage à trois. He tries to pimp out his friend part-time florist Fioravante (John Turturro). Fioravante agrees to a tryout first with only Parker. Avigal (Vanessa Paradis) is the widow of a rabbi who cleans Murray's kid of lice. Murray convinces her to try out Fioravante. Dovi (Liev Schreiber) is in the local Jewish neighborhood watch Shomrim who is jealously in love with Avigal.Comedy is subjective and I subjectively don't like it. I get where the jokes are suppose to come from but I didn't laugh. John Turturro hardly smiles and that gets tiresome. Woody is trying so hard that it borders on plagiarizing himself. None of these people are particularly likable. The only one is Avigal whose touching story almost works. The movie has a weird odd mixture that keeps it from being bland but it's just not funny.