The Smell of Success

or a game. adventure. dark comedy. parody of few genres. or, simple, entertainment. it seems be strange to define this crazy story who could remind many similar others but who has the virtue to be a charming and not comfortable ironic view about the different aspects of business world. it has influences from the French comedy and crumbs from teenager games. it is occasion for each actor to give memorable characters and to remind the crazy pleasure of to be out of ordinary expectation. result, a nice, chaotic story. good actors in not the most convincing roles-Tea Leoni is the name who remains long time after the final credits in memory for the inspired manner to solve the challenge of her character - . and a good job.

The 'Smell of Success' seems quite an an odd title for the film but a couple of minutes into the movie, I realized that the makers were being quite literal. Anyway, it's nice to see that there's a film about the fertilizing industry in the 50s and one that doesn't rely on toilet humour. First of all, most of the jokes were quite funny. I laughed at a number of them even though a few of them were overdone (for example the breast augmentation jokes, the jumping from the plane etc).

The visuals are beautiful. Despite being sepia tinted and almost devoid of colour, they look quite artistic. Most of the frames look like beautiful paintings. The 50s look is also very well captured thanks to the fine art direction costume and makeup.

Billy Bob Thornton does a decent job as the head fertilizer salesman who suddenly feels threatened by sensational Rose and undermines her in his attempts. Tèa Leoni is amazing, proving her comedic fort once again. Frances Conroy is a delight. Mark Polish, Pruitt Taylor Vince and Ed Helm provide good support. Kyle Machlachlan too isn't bad as the smug antagonist.

I only felt that the story lacked consistency. It would occasionally delve into subplots that are never developed. As stated earlier, some of the jokes were overdone and felt repetitive. Given the concept, it could have been a funnier flick but for some reason the Polish Brothers restrain.

Yet, it's a decent watch. A film that certainly has charms with some classy creative toilet humour.

This terrific ensemble cast really delivered the laughs with charm! My rating is based on pure enjoyment & that was certainly provided by BILLY BOB THORNTON & TEA LEONII. The dialog was as critical to this film as the well executed dynamics of the supporting actors. It was certainly silly & that's what made it so much fun to watch! Surprises included free of charge!

Bof, I just saw the movie with my husband and I like the beginning but the story turned strange rapidly. Too much emphasis on the sh*t jokes. I really like Billy Bob Thornton thats why I rented the movie, I never heard of it before. I was at the video club and I rent it with 2 others movies. Tea Leoni was great but the character she played was too clumsy and it look a bit too surreal. The colour in the movie were strange, my husband didn't stop telling me that everything is brown! It was filmed in sepia, I was hoping that they will switched to normal colour but they only do at the end of the movie. The sepia got me very annoyed during the movie, it nice for a couple of minutes, half-hour maximum but the entire movie was too exaggerated. An average movie for a Wednesday night.

Walk on by folks, nothing much to see here.

The bad: the story sounded promising and funny. Inheriting a cow's manure company (with big debts to the mob). BUT the execution of this story never becomes really funny. The many sh(t jokes that just keep on coming, are really tiring.

Not any good? Good actors. That's about it, because these actors cant save this "comedy" from drowning slowly. Not entirely bad, simply not hitting the mark.