Such a sweet, funny movie.

Rating: 10/10 (24 September 2008)

I just love this movie so, so much. I've seen it like, nine times and in my long movie going career, this is a first. Each time I've gone, I've laughed 'til I wept (the fight at Red's house (and everything leading up to it) has got to be the funniest 20 minutes ever put on screen. But it's James Franco that really makes this movie something special. He just brings it. In this day and age when comic performances largely consist of being able to deliver a snarky one liner or mug a camera, he gives us a fully developed comic turn as delightful to listen to as it is to watch and nearly Chaplinesque in scope because he let's us see the sadness that this not so simple little pot dealer uses weed to keep at bay. There's a huge hole in Saul's soul that for whatever reason, only big fat Dale can fill. It wasn't until I movie for the fourth time that I saw the connection between that weird conversation about euthanasia he has with Dale earlier and their big argument later in which he vows to become a a civil engineer as soon as soon as his grandmother dies. In other words, as much as he loves his bubbe, he can foresee a time when he might just have to nudge her along so that he can get on with his life. There's a mind at work there, and if you place him in the context of his book, art and collection filled apartment, you can see it's not a dim one.
Slapped, spat on, beaten, stabbed, kicked, shot at, run over, knocked out, blown up, he goes through more physical abuse than Rambo and what with being sold out by one friend and having his heart broken by another, more emotional abuse than Mildred Pierce, yet like the Little Tramp, he is never diminished, never becomes bitter or accusing. And at the end of the film, there he is in that diner, shining like, well silver.
I can't forget the scene where they're in the tree. Dale finally at long last says something nice to Saul and Saul sees this slit of an opportunity to jump in with this little declaration of friendship and when it doesn't elicit the response he'd hoped for, he's just gutshot. Yet he hides it and by the end of the scene, he's pulled himself together. "It's what I do!" Wrenching and funny, it's as delicately directed and perfectly acted piece of film-making as I've ever seen. Here is a character you just take to your heart. And when the awards season rolls around if James Franco isn't rocking at least a second Golden Globe, if not an Oscar, there's no justice.
Anne Siebenhoven, Flushing, N.Y.
vctesse@hotmail.com
P.S., I do wish the film had gone on just a bit longer to show them all sort of vindicated for being instrumental in busting up two major drug rings because my last thought as they rolled the credits, was damn, they're going to jail.