Oddly Heartless Movie, Misses Andy's "Cherubic" Persona

Rating: 6/10 (23 December 1999)

I was a big Andy Kaufman fan (yes, even the inter-gender wrestling stuff) and was looking forward to the movie. Jim Carrey tries SO hard in it, and Danny DeVito and Courtney Love just spend the film reacting to him. But they can't overcome an oddly anachronistic script (Carter president in 1975? All of Me and ET out in 1980? I don't think so...) and direction on the level of "Unsolved Mysteries."
There is one moment near the end of the movie where Andy realizes he's been conned. It's the sort of moment where there shouldn't have been a dry-eye left in the house. It completely fizzled.
Forman has made some wonderfully emotional movies - Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, Valmont and even The People vs. Larry Flynt. But Man on the Moon comes off as completely sterile. The only surprise in the whole movie was Jerry Lawlor saying he was in on the famous David Letterman incident from the early '80s.