FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Mischa Redfern I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

albert-delaunay Like so many artsy fartsy I want you to watch this for it's slow paced crap movie, this film subscribes to the idea that any old bs that you feed up to a pseudo intellectual audience will be absorbed in the same way that any action crap flick that you feed to the opposite dimension will work. This film is DULL. DULL DULL DULL. Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman can't save this yawn and ED Harris delivers a stereotype of a Mr Criminal ex-lover/bf/husband despite labouring the opposite. This is rubbish disguised thinly as art. Thank god for Twin Peaks!

tieman64 Robert Benton's "The Human Stain" stars Anthony Hopkins as Coleman Silk, a university professor. Accused of making "racist remarks", Silk is fired from his job."The Human Stain" was written by Philip Roth, an author renowned for needless "cleverness". In "Stain", Silk is revealed to be "actually an African American" who just "happens to be white". Because he is ashamed of revealing his ethnicity, Silk accepts the aforementioned charges of racism. Via flashbacks, we are then granted a glimpse into Silk's younger years. Steeped in self-hate, and occasionally victimised, Silk's life is mirrored to the travails of Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman), a woman whose own self-hate stems from years of physical and emotional abuse. All other characters in Benton's film, including those played by Ed Harris and Gary Sinise, wrestle with similar problems. They all view themselves as "human stains".Though interesting in theory, "The Human Stain" mostly embodies all of writer Philip Roth's worst qualities. It's too writerly. Too filled with overly "clever ideas". And like most of Roth's books, it's simultaneously obsessed with themes of racial prejudice, self-hate and misplaced guilt, whilst having very little to say about such things. Consider one of Roth's best novels, "Nemesis". Written in the style of 1950s modernism, rather than the self-conscious postmodernism of his other works, "Nemesis" is about a young Jewish man who, during the 1940s, blames himself for an outbreak of Polio, an outbreak which kills Jews and so echoes the Naziism of WW2. For Roth, religious and racial persecution resides primarily in the realm of the mind. Your typical Roth victim blames himself for problems which Roth insists would be overcome if only these characters were capable of ditching their self-loathing. For Roth, prejudice is never a product of class, economics, systems or social institutions. Condescendingly, it's a product of inferior will power. I think I am unequal, therefore I am.7.5/10 - Ranges from excellent to hokey.

India M. A chance circumstance of birth. One child might be handsome, one may be deformed. One never knows what advantages or disadvantages they will be bestowed in life. A fascinating tale of self hatred, undeserved and unnecessary. But not surprising for the time period. When we can't show who we really are, isn't that what we are doing? An unusual story, but most likely a common one. Played understated by both Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins. Ed Harris is menacing as soon as he appears on screen. Gary Sinise is as we, the audience,knowing nothing. Then gradually, it is slowly revealed like an onion. Layer after layer. Nicole Kidman obviously did her research on battered women. It all rings true.Each character struggling with what they do and do not know. What do they choose to do with that? Wentworth Miller was a brilliant choice as the young Coleman.The irony in that casting is revealed in the trivia notes, so don't read them until the film is over. I was enthralled by this film and count it among my favorites of all time.

runamokprods A study in contradictions; a moving film that doesn't really work, with some of our finest actors pouring their souls into roles they aren't really right for, but touching something human and deep enough to confound the eye-rolling one is tempted to indulge. This is one of those 'failures' that is far more interesting than most successes. A film of ideas, even if some of those ideas are facile or muddled. If it doesn't really work as a treatise on race and racism in America – which on the surface seems it's grand ambition – it does succeed as a May-December romance with between two people who have lost so much that logic is trumped by need. (It's just about impossible to discuss some of the most glaring failures without giving away key plot twists, so I will be circumspect).This is one of those films it would be easy to tear apart, with key scenes and twists that simply don't work. But I didn't find I wanted to. I'd rather remember the moments of human honesty that transcended the flaws. I'll remember Anthony Hopkins dancing, first with Gary Sinese, then later with Nicole Kidman, not the heavy handed and tin-eared social commentary.