Barney's Version Reviews

Since I am huge a fan of Paul Giamatti and above all Dustin Hoffman and since I heard some pretty good things about this flick, I was really eager to check it out. Eventually, it turned out to be a really intriguing movie with a hell of a one-man show by Giamatti. To be honest, the whole thing was still rather flawed though. I mean, the first half hour was for example pretty messy. Once again, they used this back-and-forth between past and present which was as usual pretty annoying. I mean, even though the make-up on Paul Giamatti was very well done, I was still confused about when was the action taking place. Furthermore, the fact that they dropped the back-and-forth half way through made it even more pointless. It was also rather unclear what the hell was he doing in Rome to start with and who were these people with him. Later on, the whole thing got more focused and I was able to dive into the life of this Barney character. And it was such a great character. I mean, the guy was deeply flawed but that made him even more interesting. It was also great to see Paul Giamatti in the lead for once and his performance was a real tour-de-force. I also loved Dustin Hoffman and their scenes together were probably the best. At the end of the day, I think the makers got too ambitious and tried to develop too many stories (Rome, his 3 marriages, his friend Boogie who died mysteriously, the cop suspecting Barney of murder, his kids, his TV work, his alzheimer,...). I mean, that was a lot to digest and they could have dropped a few things. Still, the main character was really fascinating and the acting was excellent so I really liked it and it is definitely worth a look.