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67 reviews in total

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14 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
A very poor movie, 28 January 2003

Author: joepublic from the outer reaches of your mind

This is one of those movies that tries really hard to be quirky and off the wall but misses the point that off the wall is hard to construct. That is the feeling of this movie a construction that tries to pile in as many bizarre narrative threads as possible, lsd, tornados and the FBI. The narrative is feather light and at times scenes are so tenuously linked that it is almost laughable.

The camera work and editing style try and fit the "off the wall" strategy but just end up becoming distracting. Th acting is poor all round with the better actors in the cast looking as if they are going through the motions. This has t.v. movie written all over it !

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12 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
Weird but good, 11 July 2002

Author: Spanner-2 from United States

This low budget offering from disturbed filmmaker James Toback ("Black and White") features Adrian Grenier as a Harvard University basketball player in money trouble who is conned by his shaddy girlfriend (Sarah Michelle Gellar (playing a rif on her "Cruel Intentions" role) to throw a basketball game for money. Add in subplots about the mob, a couple of shaddy FBI agents (including a weird performance by Eric Stoltz), a teacher he has an affair with (Joey Lauren Adams) and a bizare drug trip segment and you have.. a typical Toback picture.. Still, the performances, especialy by relative newcommer Grenier are excellent and the story is weird enough to keep you fascinated.. Not for all tastes due to its subject matter but a good film. GRADE: B

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11 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
Great cast...not great film., 3 June 2003
Author: stephenhounslow from Hounslow England

I have seen " HARVARD MAN " for the first time on dvd and i think it is a notable failure with a great cast.

James Toback is a good director but this is not one of his best films simply it is poorly written and directed and it gives the cast nothing to do whatsoever.

Adam Greiner is ok if a little wooden but he gets completely out acted by the utterly gorgeous and totally wonderfull Sarah Michelle Gellar as the nasty and calculated Cindy.

The rest of the cast...Rebecca Gayheart,Ray Allen and,good to see him in a movie after all these years,Eric Stoltz are excellent but as i have said they are not given much to do.

So in short...notable failure that could have been good.

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13 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
horrible, 10 June 2006

Author: kschwar61 from United States

This movie had so many chances to be comedic, dramatic and even interesting, but just failed on so many levels. In some instances the actors were so "acting" that it was just unbelievable. Nothing good here. Joey Lauren Adams is just good to listen to because she is a bit sexy. Hell it is so bad that I just saw the end and I can't remember how it ended... I had to make this comment at least 10 lines for it to be posted. Now, you have to know that I am just writing to get it posted. This is how bad this movie was. If you get stoned or do some LSD, it just might be your cup of tea. If you have the brain power to dissect the movie. Even then, don't expect too much.

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9 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Average, 12 July 2003

Author: conace21 from Buffalo

The beginning of this movie is weak, and overly simplistic, especially the early scenes with the Cindy's father. The most amusing part is the fling in the forest, where Sarah Michelle Gellar's sexiness is notable. However, it gets better. You feel the guy's confusion in his head, his mindset, and the overall suspense picks up. The biggest disappointment is it ends abruptly. The plot could have been carried on even further, I believe.

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6 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
The apocalypse, 26 January 2007
Author: NIKITIN-1 from Russian Federation

If I were to express my true views of this film, it would not be allowed on the internet. Totally egregious, a travesty, a cinematic endeavour that has successfully set humanity back at least 30 years. I just can't understand what possibly possessed this guy to make this film, let alone for Buffy to star in it. Not to mention its racism. Evidently, black people don't go to harvard, but if they do, rest assured that they play basketball and carry guns!Besides the only two blacks in the film were a gun toting roommate and a nymphomaniac neighbourwith designs on the two white protagonists, all that was missing was to have them eat some fried chicken and have grills. I am lost for words. Let me use some pseudo-deep philosophy to ponder it, similarly to Kirkegaard, as would be said in the film. I really hope that as many people as possible watch this film and consider how its release was ever made possible. Honestly, why did his black Harvard roommate attack him with a gun???

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4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
You'll never look at the FBI the same way again, 15 June 2006

Author: TruthSpeaks from United States

The movie has an unintentionally ridiculous plot involving tri-sexual FBI agents, mobsters, a hot blonde philosophy professor, high stakes gambling, a natural disaster, and a cameo appearance by Al Franken. Interspersed with these things are characters tripping on drugs or philosophizing as college freshmen do, at great length.

Leading man Adrian Grenier has gotten handsomer since he made this movie; he grew into his looks. He did a good job acting, especially considering how young he appears to be here and the oddness of the material.

I was expecting the movie to be more offensive because the director has a reputation for doing unspeakable things to females in life, and given his other movies. This movie just appears to be a drug-fueled, delusional, freshman fantasy, but not as enjoyable as that sounds.

The fact that this director was given several movies to direct after this, each more offensive than the next, is disturbing.

Notes for the sensitive: The movie opens with footage from a sex scene and there are several more throughout. Plenty of drug usage too.

Some people have commented on the oddness of the colors in the movie but I just saw it on Showtime and found those to be normal, except for the brown river water in Boston. Maybe the colors were corrected or maybe there are colors only some people can see, like dog whistles.

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5 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Intense, 19 December 2002

Author: Iced Guardian from Linkoping, Sweden

I wouldn't say this movie is ordinary. There is something about it that makes it stick out of the crowd. Perhaps it is the exquisite camera work, perhaps the intensity and the tempo of it, or maybe merely the fact that the acting performance is excellent. It might be a bit intense at the start, but once you pass the threshold, you get sucked into the story. Anyway it is a good movie, and even if the story is not unique itself, the movie truly is. Watch it, it's worth the money renting.

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6 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
high pitched, 19 February 2004

Author: san_strik from nijmegen Holland

So...Joey Lauren Adams is this professor in philosphy......With that voice????

It somehow didn't seem right to me. At least we've learned about the dangers of drugs. Before you can say LSD, you're entangled in a web of deceit, with both the FBI and the mafia on your tail. No use to get philosophical about it, just say no. As Buffy would say: 'cos it's Wrong!!!

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Morality Lesson...or Really Bad Trip?, 19 July 2003

Author: K-Slicer from In A Confined Space

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I am a fan of the offbeat independent genre of filmmaking and I found this to be a rather interesting entry into it. I really like morality tales but I feel a bit ripped when the ending doesn't end with a crash and burn (much like Risky Business or The Graduate). What does save this movie is the first ninety percent of it. Here are my reasons (some spoilers contained within): (1) I loved the sharp dialogue in this movie. Some of the lines that I heard throughout the film I will probably remember for quite sometime. (2) Adrien Grenier's performance was excellent and the best in the film. Seeing him go through that acid trip was enough for me to recommend him for an acting award. The words "Oscar Clip" should have been blinking at the bottom of the screen. (3) Sarah Michelle Gellar was enticingly evil as Grenier's boyfriend. Even her alter-ego would probably want to stab a stake in her heart. (4) The acid trip sequence is about as messed up as any sequence I have ever seen in a movie. As I saw Eric Stoltz's face become visually distorted, I felt like I had dropped acid myself. (5) The philosophical value in this movie is about as heavy as gold. I love it when movies inject philosophy into the plot of a film because the film is then acknowledging that something is supposed to be learned by watching it and therefore it isn't stupid. Most mass-produced movies don't have this phenomenon. (6) The most surprising aspect of the movie goes to Al Franken. He is the last person that I would ever expect to do a cameo in the movie and I don't think his talent was wasted or misplaced. (7) This is the second movie I have ever seen by James Toback and I found his style of filmmaking to be an acquired taste (much like that of Paul Thomas Anderson). He did a splendid job directing this movie however. (8) I found the choppy cinematography to a blessing. If the cinematography hadn't matched the somewhat choppy story to begin with, it would have sank even farther in my mind. Eight reasons give a score of eight.

The downers I thought were (1) the choppy editing and (2) that sad excuse for a denouement and I believe they are interlocked. Granted the editing was rather sub-par I believe, it was needed to accomodate the screenplay. In order not to blow anything at all, they need to cut and paste it in that manner but the job was unfit anyway. I blame the denouement for that, if there had been a nice crash and burn at the end (much like Donnie Darko and The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys) the film wouldn't have been so choppy to begin with. All movies that are made to send a strong moral should have the character suffer a big loss in his or her life that they have to live with forever. Granted the ending does have some of that, it didn't really pay off in that manner and I felt a little cheated.

Overall, I found "Harvard Man" to be an engrossing and disturbing film that interlocks philosophy, drug use, and crime into almost nicely wrapped package. If the ending had paid off, it would have been almost flawless. Here ends my rant!

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