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People vs. Larry Flynt, The
Sony Pictures Entertainment / Columbia Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for strong sexual material, nudity, language and drug use
Starring
Woody Harrelson,
Courtney Love,
Edward Norton,
Brett Harrelson,
Donna Hanover,
James Cromwell,
Crispin Glover,
and
Vincent Schiavelli
Woody Harrelson stars as publishing maverick Larry Flynt, who becomes the unlikely champion of the First Amendment when he takes his fight against the Rev. Jerry Falwell all the way to the Supreme Court. (Sony Pictures Entertainment)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Scott Alexander
Larry Karaszewski
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Milos Forman
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: May 6, 2003
Video: November 17, 1998
Theatrical: December 25, 1996
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
129 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
Canada / USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Love proves she is not a rock star pretending to act, but a true actress, and Harrelson matches her with his portrait of a man who has one thing on his mind, and never changes it.
100
Film.com
John Hartl
Raucously entertaining.
100
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
The film catches us by surprise in its moving portrayal of the love between Larry and Althea, played by Courtney Love in a performance that glides from kinky abandon to stark tragedy.
100
USA Today
Mike Clark
Forman finesses the story's grimmer aspects as he did in "Cuckoo's Nest," and his ability to switch moods on a dime remains unsurpassed.
100
Washington Post
Rita Kempley
Enormously entertaining and surprisingly touching.
100
The New York Times
Elvis Mitchell
A blazing, unlikely triumph about a man who is nobody's idea of a movie hero. Smart, funny, shamelessly entertaining and perfectly serious too.
100
Newsweek
David Ansen
Courtney Love's performance as stripper Althea Leasure is an amazement. Funny, unfettered and almost scarily alive in front of a camera, she's the definition of a "natural."
100
Film.com
Robert Horton
Forman imbues the material with exactly the right dry, satirical flavor, yet this story is still a Frank Capra little-guy-against-the-system picture.
90
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Provocative and engrossing.
90
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Vastly entertaining.
90
Film.com
Sean Means
Althea is a ferociously vibrant character, and Love goes all out to infuse her with a wildness seldom seen on screen. Love holds nothing back, and her energy and her heartache energize the movie.
88
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
There's a gentleness and open-mindedness in that touch and throughout the film that's a little at odds with the shallower script. But, in the end, that humanity pays. [27 Dec 1996]
88
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Tells a good, intelligent story that keeps us interested and involved.
88
San Francisco Examiner
Barbara Shulgasser
With its fine courtroom scenes, excellent performances, great writing and superb direction it reminds me more than anything else of Barbet Schroeder's "Reversal of Fortune."
80
Film Threat
Chris Gore
I loved it. I'm glad it was made...Film Threat's association with Flynt would sometimes bring gasps of outrage or phones slammed down in disgust. Now, it brings curiosity and even admiration. Kinda weird, huh?
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
With "Flynt," Love does what Madonna has been trying to do for 12 years -- create a performance filled with humor, intelligence and soul.
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
The result is good dirty fun, flecked with enough wit to help you overlook the relatively barren characterization.
75
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Milos Forman's drama is full of outrageous material that will offend liberals and conservatives alike, but it's positioned on the cutting edge of contemporary debates about free speech, feminism, and the effects of mass media on modern society.
70
TV Guide
Staff (Not Credited)
But long after you've grown tired of [Flynt's] escapades, the scenes in which he and Althea support one another against the slings an arrows of outrageous fortune are touching and, ultimately, genuinely tragic.
70
Time
Richard Corliss
Jogs from one incident to the next, amassing information and dispensing attitude but rarely creating real characters. That's supposed to be director Milos Forman's forte; here, though, nearly everyone is an enemy or a stooge.
70
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski's script may in spots be as much of a skim job as their one for "Ed Wood," but it's almost as sweet and as likable, and if the movie can't ever practice what it and its hillbilly hero preach--the only "beaver" shot in the movie involves a corpse--its heart is certainly in the right place.
40
Salon.com
Charles Taylor
"Larry Flynt" should have a slick, whorish look, but there's no juice in Forman's sleaze. Hustler's centerfolds look like Renoirs next to the cold-eyed way Forman shoots women's bodies.
30
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
We're really celebrating Hollywood's freedom to create biographies of anyone, no matter how high or low on the social ladder, and still come up with the same banal characteristics, messages and conclusions. In this sense, The People vs. Larry Flynt doesn't champion, so much as squander, freedom of speech.
30
Film.com
Tom Keogh
In all, this film is a major disappointment with a few powerful highlights.
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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