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Slipstream
Strand Releasing

3.5 based on 14 reviews Read critic reviews How did we calculate this? based on 2 votes Read user comments Rate this movie

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MPAA RATING: R for language and some violent images

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Christian Slater, Jeffrey Tambor, John Turturro, Camryn Manheim, Fionnula Flanagan, and Michael Clarke Duncan

This project attracted a renowned ensemble cast and crew. It also boasted an outstanding combined total of more than 70 esteemed awards and accolades, as well as over 200 nominations. Pushing the boundaries between fiction and fantasy, Slipstream is about the implosion of a man's mind. The film unfolds in a dreamlike, nonlinear, stream-of-consciousness style of storytelling with a surreal tale of one man's journey. Felix Bonhoeffer (Hopkins) is an actor/screenwriter who has lived his life in two states of existence: reality and his own interior world. While working on a murder-mystery screenplay, Felix becomes baffled as his characters start appearing in his life and his life starts slipping into his characters. Unaware that his brain is on the verge of implosion, Bonhoeffer is thrown into a vortex where his dreams, time, and reality collide. As Felix enters an increasingly whirling slipstream, he soon discovers that life is random and fortune is sightless. (Strand Releasing)

GENRE(S):	Comedy  |  Drama  |  Fantasy  |  Sci-fi
WRITTEN BY:	Anthony Hopkins
DIRECTED BY:	Anthony Hopkins
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 26, 2008  Theatrical: October 26, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	96 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	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...

75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Now is Slipstream worth seeing? I think so, if you'll actively engage your sympathy with Hopkins' attempt to do something tricky and difficult. If you want to lie back and let the movie come to you, you may be lying there a long time.

70

Film Threat Jamie Tipps

Slipstream is a properly bizarre journey.

70

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Amusing cinematic buffoonery by a man poking fun at movie conventions and the movie business itself.

63

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Writer, director and star Anthony Hopkins releases his inner muse with Slipstream, and guess who shows up - David Lynch!

50

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Taking a cue from David Lynch, Hopkins fractures the narrative from the first frame, but unlike Lynch he doesn't go far enough in establishing a context from which to deviate. If the story fragments we're watching spring from the same mind, in other words, it's not obvious.

50

Variety Robert Koehler

Apparently needing to release some private thoughts, musings and images to the world, Anthony Hopkins takes a leap into stunning self-indulgence with his directorial debut, Slipstream.

50

Village Voice Aaron Hillis

Hopkins claims it's a comedy, and perhaps John Turturro's live-action cartoon of a mogul producer suggests so, but what does it all mean? That art can be just as shallow as Hollywood?

50

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

The film has moments of goofy delight, some pseudo-David Lynch spookery and a couple of comic supporting turns.

50

Chicago Tribune Sid Smith

Bold, experimental, off-the-wall kicky and utterly exasperating.

50

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

If not exactly dull, Hopkins' stream-of-consciousness rant is nonetheless self-indulgent and crammed with bits of business that never add up to anything much.

50

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Not so much ill conceived and misdirected as unconceived and undirected, this is folly on a grand scale.

50

The New York Times Stephen Holden

For an actor like Mr. Hopkins, disappearing into another character, especially a historical figure, must be a far more unsettling deconstruction of reality than for the casual moviegoer observing the transformation. That is a notion Slipstream might have explored more fruitfully, had it focused its wandering attention span, kept its camera steadier and figured out what it wanted to say.

33

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

The result is either one of the most self-indulgent vanity projects in the history of the Hollywood star system, or a rare revealing look at a distinguished actor who usually keeps his real self out of the spotlight.

12

New York Post Kyle Smith

At 96 minutes, this vanity/insanity project runs a bit long; five minutes would have been plenty.

The average user rating for this movie is 3.5 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Curtis S. gave it a0:
This is the first zero rating I've ever given to a movie. What an utter piece of confused noisy trash this film is. Random visual and auditory interference scattered abundantly throughout, after about 15 minutes, I could watch no more. I think it qualifies as "unwatchable." The entire movie, according to others estimations of it on metacritic,com, is a bunch of confusion: real and fictional elements of an older (dying) man as his life flashes before him. This strongly seems like the experimental work of a first year, self-indulgent film student who wanted to bring one of his sleep-dreams to life, with absolutely no consideration for the audience's enjoyment or understanding. I think the relatively high rating of 7, by consumers and pro critics is due to some misplaced allegiance to Anthony Hopkins, (obviously a great actor in other films), who wrote, directed and comatosely "starred" in this embarrassment. Even he called it "a joke" at a screening. Please, Mr. Hopkins, stick to acting, or at least have a story if you decide to give it another go at directing, To sit for an hour and a half only to find out that the unpleasant mish-mash you've just endured is the fractured percepton of a dying man is a complete disappointment. It's like someone had played a cruel trick on you and wasted an hour and a half of your life. Not, funny, Mr. Hopkins.

Chad S. gave it a7:
Five minutes into...hell, let's be honest here; thirty-seven seconds into "Slipstream", I was lost. I had to consult my Oxford Concise English Dictionary to look up the word "slipstream". According to the OED, "slipstream" is defined as "an assisting force regarded as drawing something along with or behind something else." That helps explain the seemingly arbitrary flashbacks that are hurled at the viewer in abundance, in places where no filmmaker has ever placed them before. Then there are the jump cuts, the off-kilter music cues, the lack of continuity, the external noise on the soundtrack, the Russian formalist style of editing, etc., etc., etc. "Slipstream" has the look and feel of a collaboration between Jean-Luc Goddard and David Lynch. It's art film damage. "Slipstream" makes both "Pierrot le fou" and "Mulholland Drive" seem less ardurous to sit through by comparison. Actor-turned-director Anthony Hopkins made a film that no ordinary person would want to sit through. Good for him. Who knew he had it in him to be a confrontational artist? "Slipstream" has the look and feel of a young man's movie. He's 71, folks. But then, in the final act, he shows his age; the funhouse thrill of disorientation wears out; the film's nonsensical presentation starts to make sense; all the looking glasses in the hall of mirrors are cracked except one. Unlike the work of Lynch, in which story particulars are open for debate, "Slipstream", decidedly slips off its French skin and walks around like an American during the home stretch. From dadaism to didacticism; the filmmaker makes the mistake of being too tidy, especially so during the end credits.

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