Simple Men |  | Director: Hal Hartley
Actors: Bill Sage, Robert John Burke, Karen Sillas, Elina Löwensohn, Martin Donovan
Studio: Image Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.99
Buy New: $8.49
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Seller: Microcinema DVD
Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 62314
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 105 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.5
MPN: IMED1957D
UPC: 014381195729
EAN: 0014381195729
ASIN: B0000YEE1W
Theatrical Release Date: 1992
Release Date: January 27, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 27-JAN-2004
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com
Simple Men opens with small-time hood Bill (Robert Burke from RoboCop 3) asking a bound and blindfolded security guard if he can have the guard's Virgin Mary medallion. "Be good to her and she'll be good to you," says the guard. Immediately after, Bill is double-crossed by his girlfriend and his partner. From there, the plot goes off in a completely different direction: Bill and his younger brother Dennis (William Sage, High Art), a philosophy student, go off in search of their father, a former star shortstop who may have committed a bombing many years ago. Their only clue is a phone number on Long Island; they end up at a cafe run by Kate (Karen Sillas, Female Perversions), which is also the hangout for Elina Löwensohn (Nadja) and Martin Donovan (Hollow Reed, The Opposite of Sex). But plot is never the point in Hal Hartley movies (Trust, Amateur, Henry Fool); it's just a clothesline on which to hang odd, quirky scenes--moments like Donovan and Sage trying to imitate Löwensohn's dance movements to a Sonic Youth song, or a half-drunken conversation about pop music and self-exploitation. Hartley's deliberately stilted dialogue and stylized performances actually play better on video; the movie feels more intimate, making the humor more relaxed and fluid. Hartley is the kind of idiosyncratic filmmaker who provokes love-him-or-hate-him responses, but there's a deep sincerity to his artifice that goes beyond mere posing. Against all commercial wisdom, he's struggling to find his own cinematic poetry. Such an uncommon aspiration is worth checking out. --Bret Fetzer
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 27
 Pretentious Drivel May 18, 2008
Genevieve Hayes (Australia)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Two brothers go on a road-trip to find their on-the-lam anarchist father and in the process meet an assortment of odd characters.
"Simple Men" is possibly the most pretentious films I have ever seen. I watched this film to the end in the hope of finding something that resembled a plot but was sorely disappointed. All that happened was a bunch of characters, that I cared very little about, said a lot of things that I think were intended to be deep and profound but which I found to be meaningless.
This is not my first Hal Hartley film. I had previously seen "Henry Fool", which I loved. However, whereas "Henry Fool" actually had something to say (and was pretty funny too), "Simple Men" is just pretentious drivel. If you must watch one of Hartley's films, watch "Henry Fool" instead.
 Intelligent and absurdist filmmaking -- you will walk away smiling and thinking June 1, 2007
Nathan Andersen (Florida)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Hal Hartley's best films are intellectual candy. They are full of provocations and delights, little moments that are both enigmatic and profoundly simple and true. This one is my favorite, at least so far. Two men on a search for their father, who may or may not be guilty of a profound wrong or disastrous mistake. Two women waiting for something or someone. In outline, the basic plot sounds like any number of Hollywood dramas or romantic comedies, but in this film there is something so fresh about the dialogue with its musical punctuation and simple but unique staging. The style he employs here, of characters speaking like they were in a soap opera -- not quite acting but emoting and standing as mouthpiece for a play of ideas that is tied to the action -- works when it is subtle and simple as it is in this film (and in others like Henry Fool). Taken to an extreme it can become a bit annoying, as in Fay Grim which feels just too big and unwieldy to work. Here it is just right, and at just the right moments is broken by absurdly funny set pieces like a spontaneous musical outburst in response to the Sonic Youth or a cigarette-smoking nun who assaults a police officer. Hartley is the closest we have to an American Godard. Definitely a keeper.
 Wonderful movie, indifferent transfer July 31, 2006
Videonaut (Washington DC USA)
I won't speak to the joys of this movie...others have done so here much more eloquently than I ever could. I will, however, note that there are a few technical aspects of this dvd that bothered me. First is the aspect ratio. Hal Hartley is a master at framing a shot, and there are many times in this release that his framing is ruined, because the top or bottom is lopped off. There are also scenes in which a mood was set using dark, heavily tinted light. Thanks to (I assume) automated conversion to dvd, those scenes have been altered so they appear to take place in nice, bland sunlight.
I won't go as far as recommend against buying the disc...the movie is excellent. But you should be aware that some small part of what made this such a wonderful movie has been lost.
Deeply Felt July 25, 2005
Brad S. Van Brauman (Plano, TX USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I'm not one to go in length about films on Amazon, but I'll write a short little bit for this amazing film. I first saw this 10 years ago when I was in my teens and have never forgotten it, it really touched something inside of me, much like a great piece of art would affect you after seeing it up close for the first time.
"Trouble and Desire" = Another Terrific Hartley Project June 21, 2005
G P Padillo (Portland, ME United States)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
Hal Hartley never fails to entertain, never fails to engage my mind and emotions on a parallel level. Simple Men is no exception. The seemingly simple plot - two brothers in search of their missing dad - provides so much room for character growth that I wish there were an entire series of films centered around them.
With a hard-edged view of the world as: "There's no such thing as adventure. There's no such thing as romance. There's only trouble and desire" (actually from a Fritz Lang movie of the 1920's) there's plenty going on to both prove and disprove Hartley's ambivalent theories.
Simple Men also formally introduces us to the absolutely delicious Elena Löwensohn. In one of the coolest and hottest scenes in all of cinema we get to watch her bizarre 50's beatnik-style dance to Sonic Youth's "Kool thing." Then joined by the two lost soul brothers it turns into an unlikely production number.
Many dismiss this film, and Hartley as unwatchable or trivial and miss the point. What is amazing about Hartley is that he takes the seemingly trivial and elevates it to a level of art that, once seen, reflects our lives on every level from brilliance to the inane.
Simple Men is pure cinematic delight.
Hooray for Hartley!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 27
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