★ 5 / 10
**A film director, his actress and her driver!**
Reno
**A film director, his actress and her driver!** I kind of felt deja vu. I don't remember the title, but it was similar to this from the recent time, where it…
**A film director, his actress and her driver!**
I kind of felt deja vu. I don't remember the title, but it was similar to this from the recent time, where it revolves around a taxi driver and a woman who wanted to be an actress. In this the distinct feature was the Beatty's role. After returning from the retirement, he's in business now. Directing it, as well as in one of the prominent characters. An 80 years old and still has left lots of spark in him. It was really a great comeback, yet the film is not fully convincing. Even though an enjoyable one, particularly for the awesome performances by all.
The film was about Howard Hughes, but I don't know whether it is a biopic or just inspired by. Anyway, it was in the backdrop of Hollywood film industry. The story takes place between three characters, including a driver, film director and a wanted to be an actress. Triangular romance, but not exactly a romance film. Everything was drama, on the struggles between their professions. Often the narration jumps off to Hughes other business affairs. Overall, it comes back to the original path and takes us to the conclusion.
A very slow screenplay. I'm used to such kind of narration, so I did not find any hard to finish it off. But it won't be same for others, especially if you are not interested in what the film plot deals with. And it is over two hours long. It covered everything it wanted to tell us. They should have avoided them, to make the film a bit quick which would have worked in its favour. Beatty is a very conscious man. Look at the Oscars, he knew the error, but while having a doubt, his partner hurried and announced the winner. I hope he makes another film very soon and stun everybody who criticised this one.
_5/10_
★ 7 / 10
Most Conventional Beatty Film
bkrauser-81-311064
Rules Don't Apply is a showbiz comedy about two star-crossed lovers. But it might just as well be director, producer and star Warren Beatty's mantra. Every so…
Rules Don't Apply is a showbiz comedy about two star-crossed lovers. But it might just as well be director, producer and star Warren Beatty's mantra. Every so often the man steps out of whatever dimly lit bungalow he lives in and comes out with a big, bold project that stands quixotically and defiantly against the mores of the time. Reds (1981) grated harshly against the easy money proclivities of the Reagan Era while Dick Tracy (1990) looked backwards through the pulpy pages of loose leaf Americana while we looked on towards a post-communist world. Bulworth (1998), arguably Beatty's most radical film ripped off the facade of the yuppie, blue dog Clinton administration, revealing deep fissures between white liberals and the dreams differed of black Americans (albeit as told through the coddled, tone-deaf worldview of a limousine liberal). Now with Rules Don't Apply, Beatty is in full navel-gazing mode, making a movie so thematically simple that it's conventionality is its own form of radicalism.
The film details the brief stint in La La Land of one Marla Mabrey (Collins), the recently crowned Apple Blossom Queen and new RKO starlet on-call. She arrives fresh-faced from Fresno and encounters naive company driver Frank Forbes (Ehrenreich) who, like Marla, hopes to meet their employer Howard Hughes (Beatty). Problem is, this is 1958 and Howard Hughes has not spoken to anyone outside of his close circle of confidants for years. Caught in a state of arrested development, Frank and Marla begin a chaste attraction which alters their futures in unexpected ways.
Beatty portrays Hughes as a full on Falstaffian character; full of wit and intelligence but far too reckless and in-his-own-head to be taken seriously. He fits himself ever so awkwardly into the center of the action, allowing an ensemble cast of A-listers to orbit around the chaos that Hughes creates. It's an interesting mess to be sure. Hughes is simultaneously the most interesting character in the entire movie and the broadest; less a person than an event like the sinking of the Titanic.
Lily Collins and Alden Ehrenreich simply can't hope to compete for attention and screen time, even if their pleasant mugs immediately bring to mind James Dean and the luminous Audrey Hepburn respectively. They make the most out of their piddly roles with Collins managing to warble the catchy old-fashion title song and make the whole scene seem relevant. Yet when compared to the exacerbated gasps of Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, Oliver Platt, Steve Coogan and Matthew Broderick, our two lovers are completely washed out of the film's more interesting excesses.
And there are some pretty fun excesses. There are solid if low- hanging comedic setups, snappy dialogue and goofy sequences of frenetic action which would otherwise seem slight if not for the fact that comedies are straight-up never made like this anymore. They also keep the ball rolling, making sure everything makes sense without much dead air.
In a career spanning nearly seventy years, Warren Beatty is about the closest thing to Hollywood royalty you got still working today. If you ignore his filmography, and have the patience to sit through a few stale jokes, Rules Don't Apply is basically a lesser Cafe Society (2016). Yet considering Beatty's work is often ahead of its time, Rules Don't Apply is basically a 90's Ganz/Mandel comedy mimicking the sensibilities of the 30's taking place in the 50's starring a guy not relevant since the 80's.
56%
TOMATOMETER
· 178 reviews
34%
AUDIENCE
· 2.5K ratings
5.7/10
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