Konterr
Brilliant and touching
Borgarkeri
A bit overrated, but still an amazing film
Huievest
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
Dana
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
fredtee
The script was written by someone on opium, how else to explain the psychobabble about relationship between men and women.I know of many stressed-out white men with a family, young children and a nice house, who remember nostalgically a carefree trip while they were young and single. A good number even take a trip with their buddies and without their wives to briefly re-live the single life while in their 40's male midlife crisis. But to leave all that behind for a brief Menage-a-Trois with a promiscuos young blonde on a distant Philippine island? Then there is a bamboo Tower of Babel built to "kiss the sky" complete with a monk and language barriers...a metaphor for what, exactly. After the tower collapses in a heavy rainfall the monk doles out some Buddhist wisdom about "finding paradise only in your heart." Ouch.This is a movie for men whose physical passion has left their marriage as they reach middle age and lose the energy to cavort from sunup to sundown chasing women while drinking and taking drugs. But they can dream, can't they?Most movies have a "turning point" in the third act to resolve the problem laid out in the first and second act. Here Jeff inexplicably jumps into bed with a photographer on the very night he returns to vainly rekindle the Menage-a-Trois. Is he just plain stupid, given the blonde rents a room nearby in the same hotel? The writer must have overdosed on opium at that point.
browneyedgirl220
It was a very compelling story of 2 friends trying to figure out life. There was some great scenes of romance, heartbreak, and self determination. They do dabble into drugs, both prescription and not. At the end there is a surprise were Jeff ends up.(with his wife) Gary Cole's character ends up traveling to a Buddist monastery and runs into Andy (Sheryle Lee). Jeff does not know whether or not he wishes he was there, but knows he should be with his wife and kids. William Petersen made this movie great, that was the onlyreason I rented it in the first place. Sheryle Lee does a great job,as well as Gary Cole. I think some people will relate to this movie more than others. Sometimes I feel as if I am struggling to find my self as well, so I enjoyed this very much.
oldcntrygfts
I picked up this movie because I have become interested in the career of Willim L. Petersen and wanted to see as much of his film work as possible.I have read the comments here and do not agree that this is mostly a man's movie. I am a 50 year old woman and have spent some time questioning my life choices over the past year. I enjoyed seeing the mid-life crisis issue from a man's perspective; sort of like I had been allowed into a secret club for a little while. Clearly men and women are just wired up differently, making communication difficult if not impossible at times. I am tickled to have had access to this little glimpse of the way some men think and feel.As for William Petersen, well, the role of Jeff was a good role for him, allowing him to be charming and gritty at the same time. Anyone who is interested in Petersen's acting will enjoy this movie for that alone.
Alan Deikman (Alan-40)
It is no secret that many forty-something men are dissatisfied with their lives. And it is no big new plot story for them to run off from their married lives to pursue some new life of enlightenment and adventure. For those reviewers that panned this movie, that's all they got out of it. And if that's all there were to this movie, they'd be right to pan it.Jeff and Marty are very close to each other. It would be impossible for either one of them to act without the other, at least when they start out. They have such a bond that when the much younger love interest shows up, they find a way to share her. The three way sex scenes are tastefully done, and Andy (the delicious Sheryl Lee) is clearly seduced by the idea of having two men in a sense of fun.But they aren't the same guy. This movie is all about how they play off each other. The self-assured Jeff shows just the right amount of vulnerability, and the diffident Marty shows the right amount of insight. These two guys are different parts of a conflicted soul, too complex for a friendly Dutch monk (Terence Stamp) to guide.A movie for adults.