Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Steve Pulaski There is certainly a group of people that would bill the 1914 short film The Rounders as comedic gold, but to me, it seems more like two great, even legendary, comedic actors slumming or going through the motions. The Rounders, to Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin, seems nothing more than a warmup for larger, more thoughtful shorts and full-length features. It's perfectly safe and innocence, as nearly all comic shorts were during this time period, but for two large names comes a great deal of expectations that The Rounders barely fulfills.We watch Arbuckle and Chaplin stumble around town drunk, fighting with their girlfriends and eventually being chased out of town by other townspeople following Arbuckle attempting to strangle his wife after she hits him. That element alone is a bit extreme, especially for a film of this era, and Arbuckle and Chaplin simply do not funnel the same kind of energy into the story or the gags to back something like that up.The Rounders winds up having an entertaining final minutes because things finally pick up and become pleasantly manic. However, at the same time, sitting and watching Arbuckle and Chaplin stumble their way through town isn't so funny when one recalls what these actors have done and would go on to do later in their careers. For them, this was an impromptu warmup exercise on the set of a film in comparison to their other works.Starring: Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Directed by: Charlie Chaplin.

Michael_Elliott The Rounders (1914) *** (out of 4) Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle show up separately at their homes where they take a beating from their wives. The two eventually bump into one another in more way than one and decide to go out together but of course the nagging wives follow. THE ROUNDERS is far from a classic movie and the truth is that's it's barely even a good one. With that said, it's impossible not to at least enjoy seeing the two comic legends working together and both of them delivering nice performances. As far as the comedy goes, it's very hit and miss because the majority of the times we're just getting the same gags over and over. The two drunks stumble around, knock things over and they each get hit a lot. This pretty much happens throughout the entire running time and their drunk level seems to change from one scene to the next. I still thought Chaplin and Arbuckle had some fine chemistry working together and this is show during the scenes where the two are trying to hold each other up and walk at the same time. This is certainly far from their best work but it's still worth watching.

DKosty123 This 1914 Comedy short has pretty much survived intact due to the fact that Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed & starred in it. Most of Chaplins work survived because of his fame.This one has a distinctive cast as Chaplin teams with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle as a pair of drunks who come home to their wives, both of whom are obviously upset with them. In fact there is a lot of physical comedy as both drunks come home & both angry wives get physical with them & start pounding them. Charlies wife pounds him & puts him into Bed to sleep it off. Arbuckles wife pounds him & leave him on their apartment floor to sleep it off.Charlies wife gets concerned about what is going on with Arbuckle & his wife as they make quite a noise. She wakes up Charlie & they go over too see what's happening. After another round of physical stuff, Arbuckle steals his wife's purse, & the money in it. Then he & Charlie go to a fancy restaurant for another brawl with bar patrons. Charlie Chase & Edgar Kennedy pop up here.Overall this is slap stick physical comedy that worked well in 1914 but does not have that taste for today's audience. The ending has our drunks wind up in a lake in a leaky rowboat & drown as their horrified wives scream at them from shore.This is before Chaplin did the Little Tramp. This is Charlie doing drunk and with all the talent in this cast, I guess a real plot was not needed. Wives punching out drunk men, maybe in 1914 - but it seems today that is very rare.

Alonzo Church Most Keystones do not age well. Comedy tastes have changed over 90 years, and the hyper-speed frantic randomness of the early Keystones tend to leave the viewer wondering what was supposed to be funny. And frequently, plots are both too complicated and stereotyped.This one is different. There ain't no plot. All that happens is that Chaplin and Arbuckle, roaringly drunk, annoy their wives, patrons of a restaurant, and eventually the entire civilized world (which seems to have found its way to Griffith Park in LA.) Charlie Chapin and Fatty Arbuckle are very, very funny drunks. They just have the routine down. Chaplin's drunken behavior around his wife is hilarious, because he knows how to make inanimate objects do all the wrong things, and he knows how to pitch his body in all sorts of wrong angles. Arbuckle is not the comedian that Chaplin is, but he keeps up, particularly when he and Chaplin start to demolish a posh restaurant.The key to this short is pacing. Chaplin and Arbuckle do not spaz out in the typical Keystone way, to assure everyone what hysterical fellows they are. They just move according to their own looped logic, and let the application of that logic be the humor.The ending, by the way, can be taken as a bit of a cosmic statement -- and is that rare thing in a short comedy -- the perfect closing gag.