FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

bkoganbing Film auteur Albert Brooks creates a whole new concept of an afterlife with Defending Your Life where apparently the big sin is not to be courageous enough. At least that was his big sin. One wonders how the scrutiny was on other candidates.No such thing as hell. We just keep coming back until we get it right. As Rip Torn has it there are folks that keep coming back into triple digits. Those are who you don't want to hang out with. Draw your own conclusions.So when Brooks his hit by a bus in a traffic accident head on, we next see him on the Tramway to Judgment City. That was an interesting concept as well. It looks like our concept of heaven is quite earthly. It's better than flying around on a cloud playing a harp that could get boring after a while. I wonder what Judgment City looked like in 1491 instead of 1991. Or even 491. The Oriental people would have understood it better as reincarnation was part of their religions.Brooks dies young and he's among a group of new arrivals who've lived out their allotted measure and he's got nine days in Judgment City the Las Vegas of the celestial plane with a bunch of senior citizens. But he gets a stroke of dubious luck when he meets Meryl Streep one of the only young people in the recent arrivals. They have nine days to make the most of it.But that's at night and by day both of them have to be Defending Your Life before a celestial tribunal with a pair evenly matched adversaries, Rip Torn as Brooks's defense attorney and Lee Grant as the prosecutor. These two go at it over Brooks the way Ronald Colman and Vincent Price duel over the fate of man in The Story Of Mankind.In the end Brooks proves maybe he has what it takes.I found this a strangely unsettling film. I kept thinking of that Broadway show tune from Texas Little Darlin', The Big Picture Show In The Sky. The idea of a hidden camera taking video of you is quite unsettling. No such a thing as a right to privacy. Looks like God has us all on a smartphone that has eternally charged batteries.And also having a sister who died young makes one wonder what her fate might have been. I can say that if she didn't make it to the higher plane no one did or should.Defending Your Life is an interesting and funny film, but might be as unsettling for other viewers as it was for me.

zephomaru This is a favorite of mine because you could watch it as a pure light rom-com, but it is conceptually very intriguing and cleverly done. The idea of Judgement is about as deep as it gets, but the gimmicks involving the food, the Little Brain vs Big Brain thing, or the Past Lives Pavilion keep it fun. Albert Brooks and Rip Torn are fantastic, and the if Meryl Streep was never more adorable, The themes of fear and how we perceive life and death are ever present and cause one to wonder: Meryl or Albert, which is closer to you? The cameo by Shirley McClain is classic! Albert Brooks' writing is funny, poignant, and intelligent. I really like a movie that can both entertain and provoke, and that is what makes this a favorite of mine. It is neither the funniest or most provocative, but a blend it successfully achieves as well as any movie I can think of.

siukong Defending Your Life has a somewhat promising concept: when you die, you have to defend your life in order to see if you "move onward" or have to return to Earth for a do-over. Unfortunately, it misses too many notes in the execution of this concept, and suffers from major problems of tone and balance between the comedy and the serious.The workings of Judgement City, the trial process, and the afterlife as presented here don't make much sense from a logical standpoint (there are so many issues I had with it that I won't even go into them). Maybe we're meant to forgive the problems for comedy's sake, but the humour feels too sparse to do that. Some of it is effective, but many of the sight gags fall flat or just feel cheap. Or maybe the viewer is supposed to dwell on the inconsistencies and what profound meaning they might conceal from us "little-brains" (yet another perpetuation of that silly '10% of our brain' myth). Perhaps that works for others, but I find contemplating the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything to be dissonant with watching a guy in a white muumuu shuffle around in generic hotels and office complexes while making mildly clever quips and undergoing a sham of a 'trial'.Brooks and Streep have pretty good chemistry, but their romance does feel superficial and a little rushed, and the ending where he overcomes his fears to come chasing after her is too pat.Final summary: Uneven life-after-death film that fails both as a comedy and as an inspirational thought-provoker. 3/10 | D

Claudio Carvalho While driving his brandy new BMW, the yuppie Daniel Miller (Albert Brooks) distracts with his CD player and crash a bus. He awakes in the Judgment City, a place in the afterlife where his accomplishment in life will be judge to decide whether he shall move on or return to another life on Earth. With support of the defender Bob Diamond (Rip Torn), Daniel must prove that he has overcame the fears of his previous life but the tough prosecutor Lena Foster (Lee Grant) has evidences showing that Daniel was a coward. Meanwhile Daniel meets the enlightened Julia (Meryl Streep) that has had a perfect life and will certainly move on to the next step of her journey; however they fall in love for each other and Daniel does not want to lose his true love."Defending Your Life" is a delightfully cute and pleasant romance with an original story about the afterlife. This is maybe the best movie of the annoying Albert Brook, and Meryl Streep is adorable as I have never seen before in the role of a woman that had a perfect life on Earth. I saw this film in 1991 and only today I have decided to see it again, and surprisingly the timeless tale has not aged. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Um Visto para o Céu" ("A Visa to the Heaven")