Factotum |  | Director: Bent Hamer
Actors: Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor, Marisa Tomei, Didier Flamand, Fisher Stevens
Studio: Ifc
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $2.00
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Seller: salvobooks
Rating:  51 reviews
Sales Rank: 34572
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 94 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: GEPD79735D
UPC: 796019797351
EAN: 0796019797351
ASIN: B000ICL3NI
Theatrical Release Date: 2005
Release Date: December 26, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Henry Chinaski works in factories and warehouses to support what he really wants to do: drink bet on the horses take up with women as rootless as he is and above all write stories that no one wants to publish. Based on the novel by Charles Bukowski Factotum is the story of a man living on the edge of a writer who is willing to risk everything to make sure that his life is his poetry.System Requirements:Run Time: 94 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 796019797351 Manufacturer No: 79735
Amazon.com
Matt Dillon lumbers through Factotum like a side of beef just starting to rot, lifting his chin in quiet, semi-comic reflections on the domestic squalor of a booze-ridden life. His slow, thick performance--as if he had something more viscous than blood running through his veins--has a weary gravitas that veers from wry resignation to bursts of violence that he regrets even as he's committing them. As Henry Chinaski (an alter ego of author Charles Bukowski), Dillon idly skips from job to job, seeking one that will allow him to continue his two pursuits: Writing and drinking. He gets enmeshed with one woman (Lili Taylor, I Shot Andy Warhol) and dallies with another (Marisa Tomei, In the Bedroom), but his only true love is the bottle. Despite this bleak storyline, Factotum proceeds with an almost lighthearted pace, each spare scene delivered with a dry, almost wistful tone of regret and flashes of gallows humor. Director Bent Hamer (Kitchen Stories) is from Norway and has a similar aesthetic to Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki (The Man Without a Past); sly slices-of-life that deliver bad news with a gentle, forgiving touch. --Bret Fetzer
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 51
 Booze, cigs and weary waste February 12, 2010
Bradley F. Smith (Miami Beach, FL)
Matt Dillon gets the look right here, but his voiceovers fail him a bit, when he tries to draw out the weary quality of the Bukowski prose he's quoting from. Almost an Edward Hopper painting come to life in its anonymous downtown urban squalor scenes, the movie drifts along at a slow-paced comedic speed. I found many of the scenes funny, especially the numerous firings from dead-end jobs by angry bosses who catch Chernasky drinking on the job. Dillon smokes enough cigarettes and downs enough booze to age him a decade here, but he still looks pretty for his age. This sleeper is very much worth a watch.
 Bukowski/Chinaski was not a Doofus... November 23, 2009
inframan (the lower depths)
...which is how Dillon plays him, too bad. Aki Kaurasmaki should have made this film. He has the deadpan flat defeatist humor that would fit with the material & he definitely has the right actors. Dillon's OK in decent Hollywood fare, but he's never tasted the gutter or drunk Thunderbird by the gallon. He just acts it & pretty lamely at that, too bad. There's just no grunge or human despair anywhere in this film, Lili Taylor & Marisa Tomei doing their hip chick routines, too bad.
I love Bukowski. I've read every book he wrote including the poems & I reread them regularly, he didn't deserve this. None of us do, too bad.
 Hard Man; Gentle Vision August 28, 2009
Theresa Williams (USA)
When you make a movie about a man who was as fiercely individualistic as Bukowski, you are bound to rub some of Bukowski's fans the wrong way. Each of us takes something different from the life and times of Bukowski. I have no doubt that many films will be made about Bukowski in the future; each will have its own vision. I've been reading Bukowski's work for more than twenty years and have always been drawn to the gentleness that I know exists within the hard man. So I loved this movie because it does touch, at times, on that gentleness. One aspect of Bukowski's nature that the film thankfully mentions is Bukowski's love of music: I wish the film could have brought that out more because I've always thought this was the keys to understanding the depth of this great writer. Music was Bukowski's sanctuary. However the film does an excellent job of portraying Bukowski's quest, which is not to be published, although every writer does seek that, but simply to live his own life and to write.
Life and art of Charles Bukowski January 21, 2009
Reader (Boca Raton, FL)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It does not take one to be a Charles Bukowski reader to like this movie. I will be the first one to admit that I have not read any of his work, but since the movie "Barfly" I know just enough that Bukowski was a social misfit who has spent his life drinking hard and writing compulsively. This semi-biographical work of his life depicts him as a man who hops from one menial job to another to make just enough to pay the rent. He is a gambler with and eye for unconventional women. It is almost surreal kind of people wh meets in this way of life that serves him as a source of inspiration.
I loved Matt Dillon's and Lili Taylor's performances. Their characters are such that one cannot but think they truly deserve one another. There are many funny moments in the movie. This film is just wonderful story about the price a person can take in order to pursue thir true nature and happiness. In this case, our main character was a writer and no social convention was going to change that.
 No wonder Bukowski hated movies December 3, 2008
Charles E. Holland (Nashville, Tn)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I love Bukowski's writing. I couldn't put the book Factotum down. On the other hand, I couldn't wait for the movie Factotum to end. I don't think it captured the spirit of Bukowski one bit, unless we are to believe that his life was slow and boring. I am quite sure that there was rarely a boring day in the life of Charles Bukowski. As far as Matt Dillon goes, with the exception of a the make-up job to make him look like Bukowski, I'm not sure there is any depth to his performance at all. His readings sound like a bad imitation of "An American Prayer" and he's completely stoic on screen. To get a better does of the Bukowski experience, I recommend watching "Born Into This."
Showing reviews 1-5 of 51
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