VividSimon Simply Perfect

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Tin_ear Most of the counterculture films of the period have the feel they improvised on the fly and are horribly self-indulgent. But where some hare-brained films like Easy Rider can win you over through the characters, soundtrack, technique, or dialogue (never mind that Easy Rider campfire diatribe, the Fifties were just as crappy as the Sixties politically), this film is dated and borders on cheesy. For some reason there is a guy in black face, because, it was metaphorical or something. Again, it's a counterculture film, they can make eccentric choices and film scholars can explain the brilliance of the casting choice later, that's their job. Also, the soundtrack is a huge part of the film, so if you don't like it, you will probably be annoyed. After the third song you will realize whether it will grow on you or not.It's hard to say that the film really works because the message is broad and unfocused. I don't think it is saying anything. The film is so absurd, erratic, and uninterested in developing characters you get the impression they either worked to fill out the plot by brainstorming ideas in all-nighters and intentionally shrugged off narrative or character arcs, or they filmed six hours and this was the most coherent cut they could salvage. Rarely do you invest three hours in a film and are left utterly apathetic to the character, who he is, why he is, or what it all means. You'd mistake this for a light-comedy for the ease this guy falls ass backward into willing sexual partners, but it isn't funny. However satire is too strong a word, instead it hovers awkwardly in the gap between.The film has an edge, the only reason Warner Brothers supposedly authorized it was the success of A Clockwork Orange but oddly it is not really shocking or entertaining though that was surely what it was going for. It doesn't date very well, most "edgy" farces don't. I have to reiterate, this whole production has the feel of a director who keeps saying "hit me" to the dealer on 18, and each time gets a seven.Jerry Lewis invented the "trick" ending and for some godawful reason the avant-garde community has never let go. I can't really say more without getting into spoiler territory, but the ending pretty much ends up justifying your suspicion that you've wasted your time watching a bunch of people have fun in front of a camera, instead of filming a movie.

Dave from Ottawa The central idea of Lindsay Anderson's bizarre and sometimes frustrating political satire seems to be that ideals inevitably come to grief when they fall into contact with humans and human society, which are invariably corrupt, petty, stupid, selfish and cruel. This is a pretty dark message for a comedy, even one as black as this, but it helps that the main character manages to cling to his ideals for as long as he does. The story comes from McDowell's own experiences selling coffee in the 'territories' (ie. the parts of England that aren't London), but the plot runs fairly close to that of Waugh's Decline and Fall, as we follow the fortunes of a naif through the blood thirsty world of capitalism and eventually into prison and beyond. Along the way we encounter every class and type of Britisher, every UK institution and we watch as idealism crumbles in the face of pragmatism and the failings of human character. Ex-Animals keyboardist Alan Price provides often clever, sometimes intrusive or annoying sung commentary on the action and on England herself, which makes for a somewhat uneasy mix, but then the whole film is like that. Anderson pulled out all of the stops and dares the audience to put up with the results. Hollywood won't do this now, but directors in the early 70s and especially those working outside the big studios could get away with it. At almost three hours length, and with a picaresque story that is never about just one thing for more than twenty minutes, this movie is a bit of challenge to sit through.Make the effort. Movies like this don't get made anymore and we're oh such lucky men to have this one.

runamokprods Surreal, often hysterically funny, sometimes surprisingly sad, full of sly political and social satire, and jammed with wildly brave film-making choices, along with one of the great movie song-scores of all time by Alan Price. Its Candide meets 1970s Great Britan as a young man rambles through life in a series of absurd adventures, with the great supporting cast (Ralph Richardson, Helen Mirren, etc.) having the time of their lives playing multiple roles.The three hour running time may sound daunting, but it flies by as we watch our hero Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell, whose real life pre-acting experiences were the jumping off point for the story) slowly become wise to the ways of the world through a series of bizarre encounters, arrests, love affairs, and everything else that can befall a young man on the road. A must see film for anyone who appreciates unique films and British humor.

MisterWhiplash The opening of O Lucky Man!, a three-hour epic black-comedy on one man's journey through self-discovery in 1970's Britain, is a little odd off the bat. We see some old documentary footage on the making of coffee beans (maybe it's real, maybe not), and it leads up to some coffee farmer in a bad mustache played by Malcolm McDowell getting his hands cut off for thievery. I suppose this is to introduce McDowell's character as a coffee salesman early in the film, but see how it cuts away from this to the rock band led by Alan Price plays, in a studio, the opening title song for the film. This is not just something that will happen once, but as something of a theme, like a rocking Greek chorus (or, perhaps, like Godard's Sympathy for the Devil). But then again, this is the simplest thing about O Lucky Man! This is a complex nut to crack: on the one hand it's whimsical in its telling of Mick Travis (the same, or a variation, of the Mick Travis from If....), who starts off as a coffee salesman, then has a little bit of a road movie for the first half, then tries to become successful with a big-shot London businessman, and then after a stint in jail... becomes an actor, one supposes, much like McDowell in real life (albeit the only similarities one could see is that he sold coffee and became an actor). But on the other hand with the whimsy and dark comedy, sometimes bizarre (the "Pig-Man" at the laboratory Mick walks in on, the breastfeeding bit, the in-jokes on Clockwork Orange), sometimes political (the torture scene with the fascists), it's also an existential drama of sorts.Of sorts I mean that you come to this conclusion when the film ends. As O Lucky Man rolls along and we see a story unfold that could only happen in the conflicted 1970s. Lindsay Anderson, by way of his writer and McDowell too, is presenting us with a clear-eyed double edged sword: how does one have a free will and have fun and games with women and rock n roll and be successful in business at the same time? Mick changes by the time he's released from jail, but in those final scenes he's still unsure where his life will go. Anderson's character can do whatever he wants- float along, get rich, fade away, become a star- and all the matters, perhaps, is that he does it with a smile.McDowell is game from the get-go, and this is perhaps his most charming and (at times) subdued performance. There's little of the menace and devilish-side of his Clockwork Orange, nor that repressed revolutionary in If... Instead here it's a mix of gentlemen and Lady's Man, suave spy and lost soul, and McDowell does any and all the script asks of him with such joy and interest. That's the other curious thing: McDowell makes us really care about this guy Mick Travis, even when he seems to be heading towards real greed "at the top", which makes it easier (or just more fun) to take in awkward and surreal scenes, like when the man jumps from the window and the boss calls for a 15-second moment of silence. As it's a trip through British society as a whole, rich and poor, science and military, music and women, we need someone to bring us along, and McDowell is perfect to do it.O Lucky Man is a long trek though at three hours, which sometimes passes by like nothing at all and only a couple of times drags (the long scene of the slide-show for the African businessmen is one of these), and it is very much of its time and place (one or two of the songs are dated, though on the whole Price's songs are excellent and even moving). What makes it work for any time period or place past 1970's England is the essential conflicts and contradictions this protagonist faces, and the inventiveness of the film-making. Where else will we see facts about the number of people in the world in prison in text-scrawl during a 5-year transition? It's bold and audacious, and just clever enough to keep us grinning along the way.