Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Cissy Évelyne It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

tigerized Perhaps my expectations were needlessly high, given the pairing of Hoffman and Franz, and the fact that David Mamet penned the screenplay from his original Broadway play. But after forcing myself to watch the entire production, I had to go online to figure out if I had missed something crucial that might have some redeeming value.Unfortunately, what I found online only mirrored what I had experienced. This film has very to little to offer beyond non-stop dialog delivered at a machine gun pace, much of which is missed given the speed of its delivery. And there's no let up for the viewer, no moments to pause and reflect on the content. You can't afford to, lest you might miss the significant development that has to be in here somewhere, the one you keep wishing would finally appear.But the payoff never comes. But it finally just ends, mercifully, allowing to viewer to wonder why they just wasted their time watching this mind numbing display of a very meager plot augmented only by earthy dialog and very little else. Mamet fans might find some redeeming value here, but for the average viewer, there's very little there, there. Given a choice, sorting my sock drawer has more intellectual stimulation.

Tim Kidner A film starring Dustin Hoffman, plus the chief super from the Hill Street Blues, from an adapted script by screen writing legend David Mamet, at a pocket-money price? Why hadn't I heard of it, what was wrong with it.Nothing - except it's more a filmed play than a film, with almost all the talky dialogue taking place in a dusty old New York junk shop. Dustin Hoffman is superb, mixing a florid torrent of irrelevant comment, swearing and unease that is not a far cry from his brilliant turns in Rain Main and Midnight Cowboy. Dennis Franz, meanwhile is the shop's proprietor and is an almost opposite, a masterclass in understated body language as the rants from Teach (Hoffman) have become like water off a duck's back.A third character, black youth Sean Nelson is the dog's body of the outfit and has his own agendas to deal with. The U.S coin of the title is one that might be worth a lot of money, or is it? Having sold it for more than they thought it worth, do they steal it back, just in case it's worth thousands?Mamet's dialogue crackles with a crisp reality - Teach swears like a trooper, with F and C swear words jumbled up along with everything else. He's harmless, you conclude, if not obviously emotionally damaged. Donny, (Franz) says as much and as little as most shopkeepers say; only when it's needed to get a deal done; to clarify a point.It undoubtedly would have had more impact and urgency within the confines of a set in an actual theatre, but on DVD it's OK. The shop, at least looks like a proper shop with a plethora of junk, the clutter adding to the feeling of messed up lives, somehow.Sadly, this won't appeal to everyone. There's no real action to speak of, no pretty women to break up the squalid male-ness and like Teach's dialogue, the story goes round in circles. However, this tale of emerging bitterness and feelings of underachievement is palpable and engaging, if you let it. Personally, I'm glad I chanced upon it.

Bernd Wechner I'm not sure what the appeal of this movie is, but I couldn't find it. It's a really long, barely credible, hardly lucid conversation between three guys on one set. It doesn't move anywhere, the characters are just totally bizarre, the underlying plot equally so. It's lost on me, definitely a walk out movie.The one thing that keeps you from walking out is the ever unrealized possibility that it might have some kind of point or meaningful climax, and the fact that, all irritation aside at the banal personalities, they're acted quite reasonably. But you have to brace yourself for endless dialog, wishing on many an occasion that Teach would just shut the %*&* up for a moment.

urnotdb From the 1975 play, "common" people spout philosophy and psychology in street slang. By attributing middle-class "hang-ups" like greed, paranoia and vanity to "losers," Mamet dramatizes "our" similarity to "them" (we all have our investment "bubbles") and vice versa. Luckily for the audience, this is done within the context of a deceptively simple (if we can piece it together from the fragmented conversations) crime story (touches of O. Henry) and some uniquely funny dialog and situations. Good acting, esp Nelson. In a recent interview, Arthur Miller had decried how difficult it had become to be a "serious" Broadway playwright. Apparently Mamet saw the "writing" on the wall and turned to screenplays, and has managed to appeal to a sufficiently wide audience. Many writers have been less successful at that transition, as satirized in "Barton Fink."