A vastly overrated ego-trip for Orson Welles and movie critics alike.

Rating: 9/10 (17 March 2000)

This could have been the greatest movie ever made except for one problem, it has no heart or soul. Like Charles Foster Kane himself, it is a magnificently empty gesture. Yes, Welles acts and directs superbly, yes the lighting and photography are beautiful, yes the story is wonderfully told; and yet...and yet... So what do we get? well, we get a collection of moments that never really make a whole. We get the " Rosebud " bit, we get Greg Toland's camerawork,we get Welles showboating performance as Kane and so on.But. I have watched this film many times and each time I feel cheated because it all comes to nothing.It is a city built on sand. It's not that I don't like the film, but like a child that doesn't fulfil it's potential, it makes me a little sad and a little mad. I suppose that I'll get hate mail from every film student and critic in the world but I stand by my opinion. It's easy to see why this film is so feted, but in my opinion it is an illusion, a three card trick. After all, Orson Welles loved illusions and tricks. Maybe you CAN fool some of the people all of the time.