1. AlexanderC.

   10

   Another cult classic to add to the long list of cult classics from Matt Dillon, undoubtedlly the only icon of his generation and one of the best actors today. The film is ironic, cinic and crude and yet also beautiful, human and funny, simple and complex at the same time. True to Bukowsky's soul and one of the best films of the yaer. A little jewel.… Collapse

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2. JanDC

   10

   Like it's been said, "writers cannot be successful if they're unwilling to let their hair hang loose and explore to achieve their best and ultimate inspirations! Indeed, a great stark and hilarious film.… Expand

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3. ChadS.

   7

   When a man hits a woman, there's usually a second time. In "Factotum", it's one punch thrown by Henry(Matt Dillon), one thud on the floor by Jan the thud-maker(Lili Taylor). Unlike "Walk the Line"(the whitewashed biopic of country legend Johnny Cash), the filmmaker doesn't want to portray their iconoclastic subject(Charles Bukowski) as a saint; this is an indie, after all, "Factotum" needs street(or at least, Sundance street) cred. But surely Henry Chinaski is prone to more than one violent outburst if he's some unrelenting drunk who can't hold onto a job. No drunk just hits the bottle; he'll hit jukeboxes, glass windows, and the corporeal flesh of bar patrons and fifty-cent whores alike, especially the fifty-cent whores. "Factotum" is episodic; it's nothing more than a meandering anthology of the women Henry happens to be shacked up with as he lurches from bar to crappy job to bar. Lucid or not, Bukowski/Chinaski had enough clarity to write "Factotum", the memoir that is the basis for this agreeable depiction of the infamous poet laureate of the streets. Dillon is good, but not great as Chinaski; or maybe, the filmmaker is at fault; maybe, he fell into temptation to myth-make. In place of genuine angst and other degrees of implosive behavior, he chose to uphold the romantic notion of a writer victimized by stampeding pink elephants; the pachyderms of proof. The elephants need thicker hides. Chinaski needs to be more tortured; more "Bukowski-in-a-china-shop"-like.… Expand

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4. PaulK.

   4

   This is slow and nothing happens. There are no extraordinary performances either. Unless you're a diehard Dillon fan, skip it.

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