Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Yvonne Jodi Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Bento de Espinosa This movie is a wonderful example of those movies that start very well, promising, then after 10 minutes start to go nowhere and at the end are completely pointless. This "comedy" is not in the least funny. At the beginning, Mr. Slater does a fine job portraying the dull worker, really very convincing, but then his character becomes very repetitive, all the time showing the same facial expression, which makes you start to hate him. BTW, there is not a single character to sympathize with. The movie keeps making you believe the dull worker would finally take revenge for being constantly pushed around, but he never does it. On the contrary: the ending made me hate myself that I didn't stop watching this garbage in the middle (when I was fighting to stay awake). So what's the point? If everybody disdains and hates you, treats you like a cockroach, pushes you around, then you payback by killing yourself, so that they get the confirmation that they were right about you being a waste of space?

jjordan01190 Although, I say this movie was rather sad, the sad element, which is a major element in this movies plot, is to me completely overshadowed by the beauty the story contains at times. I am a 21 year old male, needless to say, I don't always appreciate a romantic gesture. However, this movie honestly moved me. The relationship depicted in this individuals mind is overwhelmingly deep and wonderful. Sadly, this gentleman the story follows simplistic lifestyle attributes to his complex state of mind, and this is portrayed very well in the movie. I'm not an avid movie critic or anything, just a frequent renter, but I list this in my top 5 all time easily, based on its ability to make you romanticize and wonder. Awesome, Awesome movie.

MBunge With a truly creative story and a couple of engaging and image-busting performances, He Was a Quiet Man is a welcome relief from so many films that aren't nearly as clever as they think they are. I can honestly say that this movie kept surprising me with its plot twists and emotional sincerity. Writer-director Frank A. Cappello supplements his neat script with some striking imagery and lassos outstanding performances from his two leads. It's deliberately odd and unlike most motion pictures, it's must better in the middle than the beginning or the end, but this is a fine and almost exceptional piece of work.Bob Maconel (Christian Slater) is a balding, near-sighted cubicle drone. His only joys in life are catching a fleeting glimpse of the smile of his beautiful co-worker Vanessa (Elisha Cuthbert), the talking fish in his aquarium that his delusional mind has cooked up and his violent thoughts about launching a murder spree in the office. Bob is pretty much the perfect example of the isolated, barely functional guy whose rage at the world builds and builds until it finally explodes. But when the day comes and bullets start flying and bodies start falling at Bob's workplace, he's not the one doing the shooting. Some other angrily lonely loser goes on a rampage and Bob goes from office freak and whipping boy to office hero when he blows the killer away, no one realizing that Bob brought a gun to work so HE could kill everyone. What happens after that is something you should experience for yourself.I wasn't sure about this film at the start. It seemed very obvious what it was about and where it would be going, to the point where it seemed to be trying to hard. There's a point where a couple of Bob's co-workers torment him like they were all still in middle school that's transparently fake and manipulative. But I never expected someone else to go kill-crazy at Bob's office and never imagined how he'd react to that or any of the stuff that would follow. Cappello does an excellent job of setting up a story that can really only go in one direction and, with a single crazily believable twist, sends it soaring off somewhere else. It's the sort of moment that every storyteller aspires to and he nails it.Christian Slater is committed and unflinching as Bob. He's playing a screwed up loser and there's never a second in the movie where he abandons or ignores that essence. Even when he's trying to help the audience understand and empathize with what the character is feeling and needing, Slater never lets you forget that Bob has serious problems that will ultimately doom him.Yet while Slater's superb acting gets most of the spotlight, Elisha Cuthbert is calmly amazing. Most folks probably know her as Jack Bauer's daughter from 24 and I saw her name in the opening credits, but I actually forgot it was her while I was watching the film. She starts out playing Bob's fantasy, evolves into a harsh reality and then transcends that into a new existence. There's a scene that highlights a reality of life for people with severe disabilities that's at first squirmingly uncomfortable to watch, but Cuthbert draws you in and transfixes with the human dignity of her character. You stop reacting to the situation and you start reacting to her.Now, the ending is a bit contrived, especially after the impressively organic stuff in the middle of the picture. And the movie doesn't appear to appreciate the difference between a man who's crushingly unhappy and a guy who's insane, which produces a few moments where you can't be sure that the film is sure of what it's doing. Those are minor kvetches, however.He Was a Quiet Man is enjoyable and perversely charming. Everybody involved should be proud of what they made.

Subhamoy Sengupta I gave this film an exceptional 9, which is a rating too high for most films. I have seen thousands of films. I have lost count of how many films I have watched. Some inspired me, some broke my heart. But hardly have I ever seen a film that broke my heart as badly as this one. As a complement, I give it a 9.There is probably no reason briefing the story here. It has been briefed by pretty much all the comment writers, both who loved it and who hated it. This film is an oxymoron. The more you hate it, the more respect it earns from you.Through the eyes of a dispassionate viewer, it is a very interesting, and hardly clichéd, character study. But once you start feeling for the character, things won't go too good for you. Though some have compared this film with "Falling Down", I would rather compare it with "Donny Darko". Why, that will become very clear once you are done watching the film. After the credits are over, you may have lots of different reactions, and a film like this usually tends to polarize people's opinions because you cannot just pass some euphemistic remark and move on. But one thing you will be compelled to admit. There can be no tragedy greater than the realization that the best moments in your memory were the moments you never had.This comment is probably the most erratically composed of all I have written so far. But I wanted to put it into words while the wound is deep.