the trouble with this film and like so many other films that fail and is the script. the script is so unfocused it flounders around all over the place. what is the story here. ok and it a biopic but i think everyone will agree there is no way that an entire life can be condensed into 100 or so minutes. some selection and editing is required but this script just do not select or edit enough. it do not render hoffman life down to one or two definable pivotal moments or themes that the audience could identify with and and through them and get the bigger picture of the whole man. the movie wanders from being a straight plodding troubled genius biopic and to semi docu or mocu mentary (using new shots faked up to match archive footage) and to sub true life sob stories movie of the week (the whole i am bringing up a son who doesn not know i am his dad shtick) and to political conspiracy theory movie etc. etc. it just never makes its mind up what it wants to be and and the half hearted citizen kane like narrative structure (reporter interviewing people from hoffman past) is soon abandoned which leaves the film even more unstructured and flabby than it starts out. the movie is full of moments and incidents that contribute nothing to the story and could well have been cut to leave room to expand something more important. the whole scene in the psychiatrist office after vincent donofrio pounds the window screaming i am abbie hoffman. i am abbie hoffman. i am abbie hoffman. (i am acting. i am acting. i am acting. ) could have easily been cut. all that happens is the psychiatrist says you have bipolar disorder here some lithium. and and the two women in his life say we could see you weekends more often. and bang. that it. no more mental health problems. it is such a laughably pointless tokenistic scene it could easily and and should and have been dumped before it was shot. the scene where they all get high and watch newsreel footage from viet nam and hoffman phones god. pointless. tells us nothing about anything. yet and when it comes to a pivotally important moment like the drugs bust and the film making is so hurried the situation just comes out of leftfield and doesn not make any sense to the audience. suddenly he dealing in heroin. where did this come from. why. what is going on here. i and being a middle aged leftie and would guess i am sitting well within the target audience for this movie but even i got fed up with the portrayal of the man and the pigs and the fuzz etc. as brutal and be suited and unthinking and hippie hating androids. it may have been like that in 60 america and i do not know and i wasn not there and but in film terms it was cheap clumsy polemic. having said all that vincent donofrio was convincingly charismatic as the younger hoffman and i could watch janeane garofalo in anything and even reading a bus timetable and though she just wasn not right for this part. 
the trouble with this film and like so many other films that fail and is the script. the script is so unfocused it flounders around all over the place. what is the story here. ok and it a biopic but i think everyone will agree there is no way that an entire life can be condensed into 100 or so minutes. some selection and editing is required but this script just do not select or edit enough. it do not render hoffman life down to one or two definable pivotal moments or themes that the audience could identify with and and through them and get the bigger picture of the whole man. the movie wanders from being a straight plodding troubled genius biopic and to semi docu or mocu mentary (using new shots faked up to match archive footage) and to sub true life sob stories movie of the week (the whole i am bringing up a son who doesn not know i am his dad shtick) and to political conspiracy theory movie etc. etc. it just never makes its mind up what it wants to be and and the half hearted citizen kane like narrative structure (reporter interviewing people from hoffman past) is soon abandoned which leaves the film even more unstructured and flabby than it starts out. the movie is full of moments and incidents that contribute nothing to the story and could well have been cut to leave room to expand something more important. the whole scene in the psychiatrist office after vincent donofrio pounds the window screaming i am abbie hoffman. i am abbie hoffman. i am abbie hoffman. (i am acting. i am acting. i am acting. ) could have easily been cut. all that happens is the psychiatrist says you have bipolar disorder here some lithium. and and the two women in his life say we could see you weekends more often. and bang. that it. no more mental health problems. it is such a laughably pointless tokenistic scene it could easily and and should and have been dumped before it was shot. the scene where they all get high and watch newsreel footage from viet nam and hoffman phones god. pointless. tells us nothing about anything. yet and when it comes to a pivotally important moment like the drugs bust and the film making is so hurried the situation just comes out of leftfield and doesn not make any sense to the audience. suddenly he dealing in heroin. where did this come from. why. what is going on here. i and being a middle aged leftie and would guess i am sitting well within the target audience for this movie but even i got fed up with the portrayal of the man and the pigs and the fuzz etc. as brutal and be suited and unthinking and hippie hating androids. it may have been like that in 60 america and i do not know and i wasn not there and but in film terms it was cheap clumsy polemic. having said all that vincent donofrio was convincingly charismatic as the younger hoffman and i could watch janeane garofalo in anything and even reading a bus timetable and though she just wasn not right for this part. ---------------------------------Answer Question Below----------------------------------

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