An amazing film from an amazing director

Rating: Null/10 (15 April 2003)

Barry Lyndon is filled made in a poetic sense with lush backgrounds and fluent narrative. It is also heavily supported by the excellence of Ryan O'Neal's performance as the protagonist, which is both subtle and very effective. This film is comic too, very comic especially with the opening line. The script is excellent too, with a very nice touch to the setting of the film. The photography and music excel as well, and it reminds me of Amadeus. This movie is not without its share of flaws though. Towards the ending, this film starts to lose itself and gets rather slow- paced. The characters become a bit two dimensional and the script starts to flop. Though, it doesn't hurt the movie very much. This film had some very high competition with Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest, which it lost all major oscars too. However, Barry Lyndon should have won best screenplay and at least have Ryan O' Neal nominated for his performance, though Jack Nicholson was a bit better. This is defintely not Stanley Kubrick's best film (of the ones I've seen so far), honors go to Doctor Strangelove. 9/10