WHO IS HARRY KELLERMAN AND WHY IS HE SAYING THOSE TERRIBLE THINGS ABOUT ME? : DATED AT BEST

There are some movies that prove that no matter how talented the actor seen front and center may be they can't always save the movie they are in. Those moments also make you wonder what that actor was thinking when they signed on to make that particular movie. Such is the case with Dustin Hoffman in this movie.

The story centers around George Soloway (Hoffman), a pop songwriter who has trouble connecting with anyone on a personal level. Sure he may go through the motions but does he really love anyone other than himself? For that matter does he even love himself? Moving in and out of fantasy and reality, we get to see this tormented artists try and reconcile his life and the changes that superstardom results in. I have a hard time dealing with people talking about tormented artists having lived through hearing about people actually tortured in various wars in my lifetime.

As George lives his life and worries about his own existence and stardom someone is trying to mess with that same life, the title character of Harry Kellerman. There are hints as to who he might be that are muddled at best and misleading at worst, but in the end it makes sense as to just who this culprit is. The problem is as disjointed as this film is by that time you find yourself not caring.

This is one of those movies that fans call ahead of it's time and art but in the end are just confusing and boring. They will tell you how wonderful it was to see a film with a disjointed timeline or that doesn't use the standard narrative structure. When I read reviews like that it usually says to me "I don't get what the heck is going on here but I don't want to appear unintelligent so I'll heap more praise and follow the rest of the lemmings".

I would say that Hoffman does do a great job of acting here even if the end result is boring but that might make someone think it was worth watching. Perhaps if you were a die hard Hoffman fan that might make it worthwhile. I thought that the movie was pretentious and more than that put on display an example of the worst of the time period it was made. There are some movies that when you watch them you can immediately narrow down the decade it was filmed in and when they're really bad you can almost note the year. This is one of those films. 1971 never looked worse for movies than this one.

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