Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

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

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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

gavin6942 Ted, a stuffy white guy from Illinois working in sales for the Barcelona office of a US corporation, is paid an unexpected visit by his somewhat less stuffy cousin Fred, who is an officer in the US Navy. Over the next few months, both their lives are irrevocably altered by the events which follow Fred's arrival, events which are the trivial stuff of a comedy of manners at first but which gradually grow increasingly dramatic.I am not familiar with films directed by Whit Stillman, but going through my list of things to see, I am sure he will pop up a bit. Barcelona, his first studio-financed film, was inspired by his own experiences in Spain during the early 1980s. Stillman has described the film as "An Officer and a Gentleman", but with the title referring to two men rather than one. The men, Ted and Fred, experience the awkwardness of being in love in a foreign country culturally and politically opposed to their own.Studio-financed or not, this has the feel of a 1990s indie film. Very much in the vein of Richard Linklater and early Kevin Smith. He seems to have come up at about that same time when overly-talky scripts were the rage, sort of taking the Jim Jarmusch backbone and fleshing it out with witty dialogue. I mean this as a compliment, because I really enjoy this sort of film, but they also seem to blend together... maybe after I see a few more, I will recognize what makes a "Stillman film".

SnoopyStyle It's the last decade of the cold war and Barcelona has a lot of anti-Americanism. Ted Boynton (Taylor Nichols) is a stiff sales rep from Illinois working for an American company. His intrusive cousin US Navy officer Fred Boynton (Chris Eigeman) unexpectedly visit. They have a history of not getting along and different opinions. Ted insists on dating plain girls. Local friend Marta Ferrer (Mira Sorvino) brings them to a costume party and ends up sleeping with Fred. Fred makes up a story that Ted is a follower of Marquis de Sade. Ted eventually meets pretty trade show girl Montserrat Raventos (Tushka Bergen).It's Whit Stillman's second movie and is not as compelling as his debut. The cousins are basically the kids from Metropolitan after a few years. They're smart, cosmopolitan, talkative and self-obsessed. The return of Nichols and Eigeman only helps in that sense of familiarity. The problem is that the first movie has the danger and excitement of an unknown future. This one just stumbles from one day to the next. There is nothing to truly drive the movie. The anti-Americanism theme seems to be more like background music that plays throughout the movie. It's an early Mira Sorvino film and she does fairly simple acting with a fake accent. There are some sly funny comedy in a meandering unengaging story.

flapster001 Barecelona is a vastly underrated movie that achieved little success outside of art-house theatres on its release. This is a shame because the movie is both intelligent, funny and has broad appeal.It concerns the adventures of two Americans who find themselves in Barcelona in the early Eighties at the height of the cold war. Ted is an uptight and repressed businessman while Fred is his airforce cousin who's a great deal more relaxed. The film starts with Fred forcing himself on his reluctant cousin's hospitality having just arrived in Barcelona.Yet this isn't a buddy movie. In fact, it's very hard to classify and is by no means typical of an American movie. It's far more European in style.The movie is about clashes of cultures and it's here that the humour is generated. Fred and Ted's differing attitudes and intelligence levels rub up against each other, and the old debate about the differences between male and female outlooks get a look in too. But the largest culture clash is that of urban left-wing Northern Spain versus the naturally conservative and bullish Americanism. This sounds heavy and intellectual but it isn't - the film makes fun of the American culture of living according self-help guides, for example, but also makes fun of a Spanish journalist-cum-philosopher who turns out to be equally shallow.The strongest elements of the movie are the script, which is as tight as any top-notch sitcom, and also the cast. There are some excellent performances all around from some very strong actors. Fans or Mira Sorvino won't get to see a great deal of her, however, as she has a relatively minor supporting role.The film is effectively a celebration of Barcelona and also of the situations that arise when different cultures meet. This might make it hard for some Americans to warm to but, ironically, that merely underlines the movie's main theme - that the world is bigger than the American continent and infinitely wider in its cultural scope.

freeskate The casting director for this movie should never be allowed to work again. Sadly, the acting in this movie was so pedestrian that it was hard to even care about whatever story there was. Couldn't they find any better actors than this crew? It think they didn't try very hard.Mira Sorvino, probably the only name familiar to most folks, is absolutely awful in this movie. The rest of the not-household names range from barely okay to embarrassing.Really people, if somebody gives you a chunk of money to make a film you care passionately about, hire some good actors. There are plenty of them around, including lots of amazing talents who will work for minimum.