Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

alfCycle I'm a big fan of historical biopics. I love to watch movies based on real people or events and then look up what was fact and what was fiction. I don't expect movies to be totally accurate to history. I just hope they paint an accurate portrayal of the time in which the events took place. I think this movie did a decent job of that. Showing the tensions between the workers and the employers as well as depicting the political climate of that time. I had a basic knowledge of Jimmy Hoffa going into this movie. I knew he was a labor union leader, president of the Teamsters, had mob affiliations and disappeared without a trace. I'm not sure if this movie really added much more to that knowledge. It did, however, put across the significance of Hoffa's role in the creation of labor unions and pension funds. The film paints Hoffa as a sympathetic figure that did what he had to do, including mob dealings, to get what was best for the American working man. As a film, it felt very "by the numbers", going from this event to that event and wasn't especially compelling. I also wasn't a big fan of the directing style. Also, the look of the film was questionable. There are multiple instances where the background is clearly fake and is distracting. Overall, this was a decent movie and I would recommend it to fans of historical biopics who don't mind a lot of fiction mixed with the facts. 6/10...but that's just like, my opinion, man# Of Times Watched: Once

gavin6942 A film based on the story of legendary union figure Jimmy Hoffa (played here by Jack Nicholson).Can I first say this was strange casting for Bobby Kennedy? It just seems like someone doing a very poor Kennedy impersonation, not a serious attempt to really capture him. Which is unfortunate, given how central his role is. (This film, more than anything, seems to be Hoffa versus Kennedy.) The Nicholson casting is not perfect, either, because it is hard to hide his distinctive voice... but I think he pulls it off ,and the makeup helps.The Hoffa story is a fascinating one, and one that deserves to be explored on film again. This was 1992, and I write this in 2015. In the past two decades, more memoirs have been written, more government documents released... we need another biopic, and maybe a really serious documentary?

davidshort10 I freely admit I have not even finished watching this movie on DVD before reviewing it.I know what happened to Hoffa, so I haven't been gripping the edge of my seat. In fact, I have not been gripping it since I started to watch this in fits and starts since last night.I have an excuse. I live in Tunis, where there is not much action, and the TV is terrible so I buy a lot of films on DVDs. If it's English and has a big name star, I'll buy it.But what in the name of whatever was the reason for making this film? No one believes Hoffa was a saint. And they made up the deVito character. Hoffa's jibes at Bobby Kennedy, his uselessness and the family's history as rum-runners is good, but we knew that.I like it that there can be films giving the other side to the dominance of capitalism in the States, but this does not do this.Anyway, movies are meant to entertain, to move, to help you identify with a hero, to tell a story of success towards a goal, to show a great love story...If I had been watching this film in a cinema all the way back in the early 90s with even the best love object of my life, I would have said about 45 mins through, 'I'm off to the pub, luv', and I am sure she would have followed me.I suppose in those days if you had Nicholson and Mamet, you had a success.But no.And if you'll excuse me, because it is raining very heavily outside and anyway it is close to curfew at 10pm because of our recent revolution, I will pour a very large whisky and cringe through however many minutes are left.

MisterWhiplash Hoffa needs a director that has a vision that knocks you on your ass, much like the man at the center of the film himself. Danny De Vito takes the directorial reins in a style that is, frankly, emptily flashy. He moved on from doing dark comedies into the realm of the dramatic bio-pic, and boy does he love high flying camera movements, ones that pirouette and move like Hoffa is the biggest cheese to ever cheese. He brings forth a story of a man that isn't told entirely A to Z, but skips around in getting a slight portrait. He's not a bad director, which is to say he doesn't make it at all unwatchable. But the inherent flaw to point here is more-so in a lack of the proverbial "umph".David Mamet's script could also be pointed at for Hoffa offering a road-map of historical attractions- some of which might have not even happened- but his strengths could be elevated with a master at the helm. Hoffa calls for it, with his personality with the edge of a man who takes no s*** from anyone, and even when wrong has a sort of glow about him one can't shake. But Hoffa is fascinating because it is, inherently, fascinating stuff, no matter how simple the direction gets as a mainstream Hollywood effort. Here's a man who can't be pegged down because he's not, in a way, a well-rounded kind of character. He riles up workers into a union, and rallies them for a glorious cause to get what they want. Then he makes a back-door deal with the mob to get in on pension loans, and defends to the end that what he's got is legit when under investigation by RFK. He believes in "justice" before the law, and there's never a tear shed for anyone. Hoffa should be a very simplistic character, easy to peg in the scope of history as a (not quite obvious) question mark end.But there's so much that Nicholson brings to him that he's hard to shake off as a this-is-what-you-get character. With Nicholson there's the physicality, where he goes through the kind of barking and yelling and cursing and yelling and, ultimately, self-preserved ego that somehow makes Hoffa more human than the character would be played any other way. Even in scenes that feel like the most conventional of biographical stories, like the verbatim hearing between him and Kennedy, there's a lot to look for under those quintessential eyebrows and the layers of make-up. He has something that one wants to guess that he's thinking, or has in mind when he's going off on someone, or in talking with his second in command Bobby (DeVito himself, also very good in a role that, in his own right, requires just as much skill as his star to act out as a common man put in a unique position). Just a squint or a furrow can get a new angle in a scene, which helps since he has to put on such a bigger-than-life persona. I'm reminded of the best of Cagney here.Shame then that he can't quite bring up the picture to greatness. It's a rousing, handsomely made picture, and I'm sure the filmmakers wouldn't have it any other way. When one sees the big epic battle with the teamsters, the workers, with bodies going blow by blow and the music pounding and rising like a storm, it's easy to get involved in the action. It's got the production values to go however it wants. But there's something missing to it making it a classic, as opposed to just a good, above-average TV movie (yes, I used the vehement description). It goes without saying the dialog is almost as filthy as another Mamet project from 92, Glengarry Glen Ross (matter fact it's fitting both films have practically all men in the casts). However there's something too clean and lean to the direction. It sounds as though I can't criticize it well enough, but... it's depth, basically. We're given facts, speculation (i.e. the ending), and bombastic personalities. But in the end, it's still the factor of Nicholson that makes it a bit more special that it would be otherwise.