Lawbolisted Powerful

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Nobody-27 Having a film with Michelle Pfeiffer, Al Pacino and one of my all time favorites - Kate Nelligan, all directed by Garry Marshall (of the Pretty Woman fame) would seem like a no-brainer. I mean, how could things go wrong right? But, boy, did they ever go wrong, and I mean, wrong with a capital W, R, O, N and G! I have gone through seven circles of hell watching this horrible excuse for a film. The only thing that kept me going was not even Pfeiffer or Pacino, but gorgeous and incredibly talented Nelligan. Ever time the film managed to disappoint me, which happened every other minute, I was hoping for another scene with Kate Nelligan. What an actress... simply marvelous. But, everything else, absolutely sucked. The story is non-existent, but one should not even attempt to hint at it because it would automatically result in spoilers - that's how little of a story there is. This sorry excuse for a film starts with Al Pacino trying to get Michelle Pfeiffer interested in him. She has some strange form of a Borderline personality disorder, which may have been interesting to the writer, but it was so poorly portrayed in the film that it did not work at all (because it was not believable and it was presented inaccurately). He, on the other hand, suffers from inexhaustible and unrealistic amount of optimism. I mean, talk about white knight syndrome! He is trying to save her from whatever her inner demons may be, and she is constantly rejecting him. And that goes on and on, and on, and on, and on, and on for some 1 hour and 25 minutes of this film. The attraction-rejection starts around the 10-15 min mark and goes on until the very end. Each rejection is like a 10-15 minute game, so imagine how many times you get to see the same scene played out all over again. Just horrendous. And to think that ANYONE would believe that that type of torture would work as a film? This film has managed to prove to me that Hollywood filmmaking is purely based on chance. I can guarantee that no one who made a decision that this film should be made had used their brains; no, they must have had a pile of screenplays, and they threw a dart and it landed on this steaming pile of dung. And that's why it was made. There is no other option, believe me. I managed to stay until the bitter end, at first hoping for some satisfactory resolution, but later just to test my patience. The ending failed too, but as it was getting closer to it, I figured there will be nothing better in the end than before it. All in all, watch it only to see HOW NOT TO CREATE A STORY. It does not matter that it is supposedly a love story. It could have been any type of a story - it should simply never "evolve" this way, and the characters should never be written the way they were. Dialogues were atrocious. Characters incredibly unbelievable, with exception of Kate Nelligan's (who managed to save it somehow). Story was still born from the start and never moved anywhere. Various random scenes were thrown in for good measure or to try and break up the monotony. The mood is somber and it never changes. The characters have no arc, and nothing goes anywhere. This is one boring, depressing, incredibly dumb, immature, psychotic story put on screen by accident. No one in their right mind would want to make this film I guarantee you. What a shame, because with that cast and money, one would expect at least a mediocre result, but that was not the case here. Not even close to mediocre. Not even bad. Hardly terrible. More like - run away and run fast, and never look back. Just god awful in every way imaginable.

mikebeljak I cannot believe how many favourable reviews this movie has earned. I repeat:I cannot believe. If you were to tell me you lined this movie, I would clearly understand that you are either insane or mentally impaired. The love making scenes in this sicken me. Pacino is disgusting in this. I cannot even bother to begin to dissect this film in any rational way. I only came on here to even the score. This is the worst movie I have ever been abused by. I just cannot believe the positive reviews. What the f##+?

Irishchatter You have to admit when watching this film , Johnny steals everyone's heart's. Who wouldn't like someone like Johnny in their lives? I mean the guy is just really the one to be with. Boy I'm so mind blown of Al Pacino's character, he is just literally romantic. As Bruno Mars has said in his song "Uptown Funk", Michele Pfeiffer definitely is pure gold and with this role, she killed it. She really knows how to act as a emotionally disturbed woman who has been through a lot. I mean, I honestly thought that she was a wimp for keep on saying no to him but, as the story goes, you really go deep on the reasons why she is finding life hard. That's what I like about this movie, it opens up reality such as domestic abuse. It really stands out on the issues we are facing in real life unfortunately. Thankfully Frankie met the wonderful Johnny and her next door neighbour left her abusive partner for his misery. I love this movie, it's so powerful and emotional that I think it should've been deserved an Oscar, not a nominated Golden Globe...

Paddy-49 Twenty years on – and "Frankie and Johnny" has arguably improved with age. This is because it deals with the rawest human emotions and vulnerabilities and shows that when life is tough the need for community is greatest. Even if, maybe especially if, the members of that community are as dysfunctional and scarred as we are. For many of the characters in this movie life has been very tough indeed. The restaurant where Johnny gets a job, and where Frankie works, is at the centre of the lives of many of its regulars. It does not have "Community Centre" on a sign above the door – but this is, in effect, what it is. The tolerant proprietor, Nick, sympathetically portrayed by Hector Elizondo, has built that community and he is as protective of his customers as he is of his staff. Nick is a Greek-American and it is subtly suggested that the customers and employees at his little restaurant are a sort of extended Greek family - although in fact they are as ethnically diverse as New York can be."Frankie and Johnny" is above all about loneliness. Frankie has a real family – we see them at the beginning at a christening – but it is clear that they have their own lives and that Frankie, partly out of choice, is not really part of that world. As the film develops we start to realise that Frankie's introspection and the barriers she erects around herself are attributable to a couple of failed relationships in the past. In one her partner left her for her best friend and in the other she was physically abused to the extent that she cannot have children. Johnny is equally damaged. We see him released from prison but it is not until quite late in the film that it is revealed that his crime, whilst serious, was a one-off fraud and that he is no serial offender. In prison he learnt to cook and that is now more than just a job to him – it has become a passion. Johnny was married but his wife left him and took their two children into a new relationship. There is a brief poignant vignette when Johnny watches his children with their mother and new "father" in an American dream suburban family scene – complete with white picket fence. He leaves without revealing his presence.From early in the movie it is clear that Frankie and Johnny are made for each other. Despite the wounds they carry (actual physical wounds to her head in Frankie's case) they are good caring people – albeit that like Nick they do this without wearing a "Social Worker" badge. Frankie has a moving relationship with a Gay neighbour, Tim (Nathan Lane) that manages to avoid being patronising or clichéd. Similarly her bonding with her fellow workers is natural and important to them all – not least Cora the archetypal strong, no-nonsense New York woman who, deep down, is as lonely as she is. Like all the characters Cora is deeper than, and different to, her veneer. When a woman heavily pregnant with twins comes to the restaurant she touches her belly and says "People think I'm a tough b*tch, but it ain't true. Sh*t like this chokes me up." That Frankie and Johnny will eventually end up happily together seems obvious form the start, but that doesn't always happen in the movies does it? Along the way they battle, largely out of fear on Frankie's side. Johnny ardour is declared early on and we don't doubt that it is genuine. Frankie is more circumspect – unsurprisingly given the extent that she has been damaged by her last relationships. So whilst the romance is strong a happy ending is not certain and when it happens we are grateful because it is uplifting to think that even if the barriers are high they can sometimes be removed in the interests of true love.The casting of Frankie and Johnny is very good and all the minor characters, however crazy they may be are utterly credible because they are so well played. As for the leads both Pacino and Pfeiffer give sensitive and credible performances although both of them are so devastatingly good looking that they do seem a bit out of place amongst the ordinary New Yorkers who are very "West Side" in appearance rather than Upper East. Not many of them shop on Fifth Avenue whereas Frankie and Johnny do look a bit like people who habitually do this, except on dress-down day. Nevertheless although they are younger and lovelier than the characters in the original stage play ("Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune") this works fine and doesn't detract from the heart and the humanity of the story.A year or so after Frankie and Johnny was released the long running TV series Friends premiered. One of the central characters in Friends was, of course, Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston) who was initially a waitress in a Coffee House with a history of complex and damaging relationships behind her. Rachel Green is not Frankie – but there is a strong parallel not least because it is "friends" in both cases who provide the support when it's needed. Frankie says at one point "I'm afraid. I'm afraid to be alone, I'm afraid not to be alone. I'm afraid of what I am, what I'm not, what I might become, what I might never become. I don't want to stay at my job for the rest of my life but I'm afraid to leave. And I'm just tired, you know, I'm just so tired of being afraid". The message of Frankie and Johnny is that friends can reduce that fear. Love can take it away.