Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Oslo Jargo (Bartok Kinski) This is a strange little film, you never get the feeling that you know entirely what is going on. There's some intriguing dialogue hidden in the middle, but the whole theme is entirely esoteric and vague. Performances are quite good. Paul Newman seems torn but does nothing at all to overcome the lethargic pull he's drawn to. WUSA is radio station in the South where the drunk Newman gets a job.The film is intentionally claustrophobic with counter-culture elements spread throughout.The ending is rather ambivalent. It's nice to see unique films like this one.Also recommended: Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966) A Dandy in Aspic (1968)

dsolgoo-net I think this is one of Newman's better films, on the level of Hud and The Hustler. Newman plays Reinhart, a man at the end of his rope. He's finished. He's quit. He has no hopes. He used to play saxophone but he couldn't make the scene so he's a "communicator" now, having gotten himself a job at WUSA, a right-wing radio station.He meets Geraldine (Joanne Woodward) who hasn't. She's got a story. She was married once and the boy put a gun to his head. I guess casting her as a prostitute was the only way they could think of telling a story of a guy moving in with a girl that quickly in 1970. But what's important is the story she has to tell and how Reinhart fits into that story. Other than that glitch the acting is superb and the dialog superlative.Perkins plays a creepy bleeding heart, appropriately named Rainey, with such authority that it's enough in itself to make you understand Reinhart's cynicism. "W-W-W-W-What's going on R-R-R-R-Reinhardt?" Rainey asks, confronting Reinhart about the goings-on at WUSA. One of Reinhart's hippie friends interrupts: "Go to the zoo and watch the monkeys, man. That's what's going' on."Reinhart has a different answer: "I too am a moralist," he says with undisguised contempt, "so I understand your dilemma... but there IS a solution to it." "Oh yeah?" responds Rainey, "and w-w-what would that be, Reinhart?" "Drop dead," says Reinhart, "DROP DEAD!" It's one of Reinhart's defining lines, the other being (in reaction to Geraldine's thrill that he's got a job at WUSA) "Yeah, great: I'm part of a pattern in someone else's head.")If you're interested in the extremes of political personality, this is one of the best. It reminds me of Henry Miller's comment in Reds that people out to solve the world's problems either don't have any of their own or don't have the guts to face them. Reinhart's a man in the middle. He knows his problem and he's not only got no solution - not for him or anyone else - he's pretty certain there is none. Yet he's no nihilist. On the contrary, he's an ideological purist. Like Rainey, Reinhart is appropriately named. Look up "rein" in a German-English dictionary. Welcome to the future. There's likely to be a lot more Reinharts as the years go by. How will we avoid the tragedies that occur when their hopelessness meet our hopes? I hope Paramount releases this movie on DVD one September 11th.

fab_max It's one of the best examples of the kind of American films that they don't know how to make anymore in the US. It made a huge impression on me when I was 15 and again 10 years later. Newman might not be at his best but he conveys exactly what's needed - moral corruption and self-disgust. Joanne Woodward's turn is a masterclass, such raw intensity it's almost unbearable to watch. Anthony Perkins is touching and vulnerable, his performance is so emotionally honest it's devastating to witness and his character would be at home in any of the best of Tennessee Williams' works - once more he proves that he deserves to be remembered for much more than just his masterpiece - that N.B. - It's a perennial shame on the Academy that he was not even nominated for such work as in this film as well as in "Play as it Lays", "Fear Strikes Out", "The Trial" and, of course, "Psycho" and "Psycho II" - one of the greatest talents ever to be wasted by Hollywood. A masterpiece from an unforgettable era in movie-making history.

Nazi_Fighter_David Perhaps because the drama is so overwrought, Newman's acute underplaying is effective… Rheinhardt is his most thorough cynic: a failure at marriage and as a musician, he's become a wandering, alcoholic opportunist, so spineless and corrupt he thinks nothing of taking a job as announcer for WUSA… At last—a Newman character who's abandoned all ideals, ambitions and principles, who concentrates exclusively on surviving at all costs… He's even worse than "Hud," because he realizes his corruption but persists… In fact, he uses his self-knowledge to pretend superiority—to laugh secretly at the Neo-Fascists, while working for them… He acts cynically and viciously toward liberal Do-Gooders because presumably he "knows the score," although he really envies their idealism; and he rises above it all to a liquor-soaked detachment… His only ability is the put-on—once the essence of Harper's charm, now exposed as the weapon of a destructive mind… Rheinhardt's first appearance—he drifts into New Orleans, unshaven, tired, defeated, broke—is like Fast Eddie's after his loss to Fats… Like Eddie, he picks up a despairing, fallen woman, Geraldine (Joanne Woodward), a former hooker who, like Sarah, is physically and emotionally scarred… As always, Woodward flawlessly portrays the fragile, easily hurt woman who is wary of Newman, but who ends up giving him more affection than he can return… They have some tender scenes, but with her, as with everyone else, he's most1y indifferent and uninvolved…"WUSA" suffers from conversations that sound like speeches, heavy-handed direction, and a paradoxical reluctance really to meet the issues head-on