Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

nick-623 I really don't understand why so many people are so turned off by this film! Granted, it is a more of a series of character and behavior study sketches, than a fully developed story, but not by much, the story that is here is compelling. The outstanding performances more than make up for any short comings in the story as a whole. I just don't see how people were so bored with the film - I found it engrossing. Perhaps people often don't know what do do with a film that tells its story more through events, human interaction and behavior, than through conventional narrative. This is more a in the mold of a small wonderfully effective film like "Dinner Rush" than the conventional Hollywood script. Or, you could even look at it like "Broadway Danny Rose with Prescription Drugs and Opium"! It works on that level as well. But it definitely is worth a look though! And the performances are stellar!

Robert J. Maxwell Some people can do drunks and some can't. Richard Egan couldn't do drunks and neither could Doris Day. Paul Newman did splendid drunks, and Al Pacino equals him here. There's a scene in which he and Tea Leoni go to her hotel room, not so much drunk as drugged out. He staggers into the bathroom, gawks at his wrecked image in the mirror, and moans, "Jesus, these hotel lights." Pacino calls his doctor, Robert Klein, and mumbles in his thick, hoarse voice, "I got a starlet out here and we got enough pills -- we can start a (expletive deleted) cartel." The sight of him weaving back and forth in front of the urinal, trying to take a leak with one hand and dial a cell phone with the other projects a superlative image of comedy and pathos. He collapses and falls asleep in the bath tub but not before either witnessing the murder of Tia Leone or hallucinating it. In any case, the next morning he remembers none of it, thinks she's sleeping, and returns to work.If it's difficult to do a good drunk, it's fairly easy to play a man at the end of his rope. All it requires, as a minimum, is to be as earnest as possible and grimace with desperation, the Willy Loman model. But Pacino goes far beyond that as a worn-out public relations man in New York who is trying to put together a final and extremely important benefit for a decent social cause. To do it, he must talk the ambitious movie star, Ryan O'Neal, into attending. He must convince both a prominent black minister and a leader of the Jewish community. They hate each other. The black man accuses the Jew of only acting out of white guilt. The Jew objects strongly to the minister's use of the word "holocaust." On the day of the benefit, Ryan O'Neal fires Pacino as his PR man.Pacino is older and lumpier but it's not just that. He LOOKS and ACTS the part with near total credibility. Make up has turned him pale. And his long black hair has been groomed in such a way that it consists of a dozen or so independent cowlicks, resembling some mutant tropical plant, some kind of agave. Wardrobe has given him over-sized clothes so that he seems even smaller than he is. Others -- even the women -- seem to loom over him. And he slouches a good deal. He affected this posture in earlier work too, but here it's perfect for the character. And the inflections with which he informs that exhausted and worn-out voice are indescribable.The other cast members are almost at his level, might actually BE at Pacino's level if they had more prominent and colorful parts. Leoni does a good drunk too. It's surprising to see two Italian-Americans doing such a superincumbent job of being loaded since alcohol abuse isn't that common in Mediterranean ethnic groups.I don't want to run out of space but let me add that Robert Klein's role is engrossing. As Pacino's sympathetic and well-meaning doctor, he's the only guy with whom Pacino is able to share his concerns. Yet Klein shows up as part of a delegation from the Jewish community to lay down non-negotiable demands before the organization will agree to appear at Pacino's benefit. Kim Basinger, as the widowed sister-in-law whom Pacino loves, gives one of her best performances as a decent and beautiful admirer. Of course she's not as good as she was when she was my supporting player in "No Mercy," an art film that was incandescent with poetry. Ryan O'Neal, the movie star who wants to be Senator, is bronzed to the point of teak and has a great big smile full of glistening white choppers that any cartoon character out of Monty Python's animation sequences might have envied.There's a fly in this ointment and it appears at the tragic end. Teoni's murder has put Pacino's life in danger and the danger is real. But a man into whom a knife has been shoved on a public street, a man bleeding to death inside and out, wouldn't say, "Hey! That hurt, man," and then wobble home to exsanguinate on his recliner while watching Regis Philbin. Also, pardon me, but what is the point of Daniel Algrant, the director's, taking an exterior shot of the apartment in which Pacino's body sits, then slowly inverting the camera and having the shot ascend (or descend) into the open sky?

fffrancesco Well, it's not a very positive world that is shown in this movie. As Kim Basinger's character (Vicc) says towards the end, "We are all kind of lurching"- this is so true. E.'s (Al Pacino) life is pathetic, to say the less. The only hope, the only sunshine ray in this movie comes from the real, deep friendship between Vicc and E. It's a great film, though, because there no bullshit in there. It goes beyond apparency. All these political and Hollywood characters are rotten, to the core, and in fact, desperate. They get drowned into alcohol, drugs and sex to loose sight of themselves. They have lost sense of real life, of real self. As far as interpretation is concerned, Kim Basinger, Al Pacino, Ryan O'Neal and Tea Leoni are all great along with the other actors. Probably the best performance of Al Pacino's career ! There, he is, far from his early Actors Studio style (a technique which most of the time gave poor results, artificial play) , just so true, so simple, so natural, in every detail. Whatever, better not look at this movie if you are already depressed or moody ! Watch it when you feel great, rather. Then, it won't affect you and you'll be able to appreciate it for what it is: a study of our times made by a naturalist.

dunmore_ego Something happens after the first hour of "People I Know" – it gets interesting.Up to that point, with Al Pacino playing lapdog to Ryan O'Neal, the startlingly beautiful Tea Leoni as an emotionally bereft television starlet, and a smattering of good actors in great roles, *People I Know* seemed to stagger the way of those listless, shiftless, self-referential High Society movies about unethical publicists, dumb actors and immoral politicians. (Yawn.) But as it happens, there is a powerful little movie lurking beneath the façade of PR puerility.Al Pacino is New York publicity agent Eli Wurman, whose phone doesn't ring as much as it used to. He panders to his Last Big Client, actor Cary Launer (O'Neal), to the extent of babysitting Launer's latest fling, Jilli (Leoni), to bundle her out of town on Launer's request. But in the course of tagging along with the flighty Jilli on one of her regular all-night industry benders, Eli gets very bent and Jilli gets very dead.Desperately attempting to pull together a publicity event (which no A-Listers want to attend, despite his puling at their heels), Eli must contend with not only the shadowy types who killed Jilli, but with the *real* scary people who inhabit the nether regions of high society – politicians and clergy.After seeing him in various dispensable B-roles, Richard Schiff comports himself very respectfully as a powerful politician, as does Bill Nunn, as a feisty clergyman.Pacino plays exhausted better than almost anyone and this movie's breakneck PR pace, coupled with Eli's staggering gait and slurred small-town delivery makes us want to get stranded on a desert island as respite from the dogged ulterior motives he encounters - and utilizes himself - in his minute-to-minute tribulations. His doctor (Robert Klein), though advising him of how close he is to total collapse, prescribes him drugs to keep him standing. Victoria (the still-luminescent Kim Basinger), widow to Eli's brother, also senses his cliff-edge demeanor and enjoins him to accept her offer of warmth and quietude on her farm. Before it's too late.And "too late" is now. Just as Eli's hard work has paid off, with blurbs in the papers, a mention on the Regis show and a promise of bedding down with Kim Basinger; just as we are threatened with a sappy ending – the movie suddenly gets New York on us, disallowing Eli even one moment to savor his comeback, as that murderous element that he encountered with Jilli and almost forgot about, comes back to ensure there are no loose ends.As Eli's phone starts ringing again, there is no one left to field the calls.