Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Desertman84 A powerful behind-the-scenes man in politics and show business finds himself skidding into a very public scandal in this taut drama entitled,People I Know.It stars Al Pacino,Kim Basinger,Ryan O'Neal and Téa Leoni.The movie was directed by Daniel Algrant.Eli Wurman was raised in the deep South, attended Harvard Law School, and has devoted his spare time to progressive political causes since working alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960's. However, Wurman now makes his living as a press agent and PR man, and while he's near the top of his profession, years of overwork, constant smoking and drinking, and ceaseless tension are taking their toll, leaving him on the verge of collapse, with only the prescriptions of his friend Dr. Napier keeping him on his feet. One of Wurman's biggest clients is Cary Launer, a fading film star with political aspirations who, after attending a disastrous Broadway opening, asks Wurman to do him a big favor which is to bail Launer's girlfriend, Jilli out of jail and keep an eye on her. Wurman manages to get Jilli out of the stir, but she insists upon being escorted to an exclusive sex and opium den for a night of heavy drinking and drugging, and then reveals to Wurman that she owns a device which she's used to record footage of the most public figures who attend the club, including Elliott Sharansky, a billionaire Jewish civic leader. That night, a half out-of-it Eli accompanies Jilli back to her hotel room when an intruder barges in and forces an overdose on her, killing her instantly. The next morning, Wurman has only fuzzy memories of what transpired. He decides to focus on his attempts to set up a political fund raiser, but has a hard time getting the right A-list celebrities to appear, just as many of New York's power brokers aren't especially interesting in working with Wurman or Launer. In the midst of this chaos, Victoria, who was married to Wurman's late brother, arrives in New York and urges him to leave the city and his career behind while he still can.There are juicy possibilities in Jon Robin Baitz's script, and with a topnotch director and a little more better elements that they might have blossomed. As it is, despite a couple of nifty gotchas, the movie never quite gets into full stride. Tea Leoni shines as an addicted actress with a flinty vocabulary, but Kim Basinger is less lucky with her plot- device role. Pacino looks as though he's about to draw his last breath in every shot, which is precisely how he should look.With an unforgettable performance this is one of Pacino's best as you won't want to miss a minute of this gripping motion picture despite being deeply flawed thriller due to excess of plot points that fail to coalesce.

j_bowling slightly better than crocodile dundee in los angeles, the worst movie i've ever seen. i'll give pacino the benefit of the doubt that perhaps he was trying to make a boring character interesting, but the experiment failed miserably. the accent itself was awful, but it was such a bizarre one that he slipped in and out of it several times throughout the movie. the ending was unequivocally the most obvious and flat out uncreative conclusion i've ever seen. it was so bad i couldn't believe that's how it actually ended. but mercifully, it was over. ***spoiler alert*** given how the movie ends only exacerbates the suspension of reality the plot asks us to take when the thug searching the hotel room doesn't bother to look in the bathroom. the movie should have ended right then and there. too bad it didn't.

RanchoTuVu A public relations agent in New York (Al Pacino) tries to recapture his misplaced ideals by organizing an event in response to the mayor's crackdown on crime, a crackdown which results in widespread arrests and deportations. Years of drugs have diminished his effectiveness, and the drug culture is an essential part of the film's murky subplot, that has Tea Leoni as a strung out actress who Pacino bails out of jail and ends up going with to a crazy party where people are smoking opium. When she's murdered later that night in her hotel room while Pacino is reclined and nearly passed out in the bathtub, the story begins to be a rather ingenious combination of this effort to mobilize the intellectual, political, and religious elite in response to the heavy-handed mayor, while also wading through the colorful and dangerous gutter in which many of them occasionally like to plod around in. With a great part for Ryan O'Neal as an Oscar winning actor contemplating politics, and some very well cast parts and a great stand-off in the kitchen at the restaurant where the benefit takes place between a leading black minister and his bodyguards and his Jewish nemesis and his bodyguards as well, the film lashes out at the hypocrisy of all of them by focusing in on an addled and vulnerable publicity agent who's just about at the end of his rope.

johnjredington Forget about the plot. This is all about one man's private torment as he hangs onto relevance on the fringes of showbiz. Al Pacino gives perhaps his greatest performance of all as he combines sleaze, cynicism, self-indulgence, obsession and self-deprecation and yet manages to retain a flicker of integrity in spite of the cesspit of decadence that is about to engulf him. Most of the nicer sides of life are totally absent from this world-weary tale yet, when the odd little bit breaks through, it is surprisingly touching. Even as Pacino disintegrates and you know for certain that there won't be a happy ending, you're almost on your feet cheering him on in the face of adversity. Worth watching just to see the master in action and, as an added bonus, a small but beautifully sympathetic appearance by Kim Basinger.