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Average User Score: 8 (13 sources)

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infopro

-1

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While somewhat slowly paced (even for me, & I tend to be a relatively patient sort [grin]), it's well worth a watch if you can get past that. The scenes with Jim in jail & Kelso with the "Lady" Chablis are absolute panics, &...
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While somewhat slowly paced (even for me, & I tend to be a relatively patient sort [grin]), it's well worth a watch if you can get past that. The scenes with Jim in jail & Kelso with the "Lady" Chablis are absolute panics, & Jack Thompson's antics in the courtroom are worth the price of admission just by themselves! To be honest, not being that much of a see-it-in-the-theater sort, I didn't realize it was Jude Law playing Billy until nearly halfway through the flick. To me, that's one of the hallmarks of a real actor. Great Flick -- that pretty much covers it for me!

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Posted mar 15, 2008 10:27 am pt

amauriel

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I saw this movie right after reading the book and although the movie is no where near as good as the book, it does tell a great story. To me, it seemed, however, that the movie missed a couple of key points that would have helped the audience...
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I saw this movie right after reading the book and although the movie is no where near as good as the book, it does tell a great story. To me, it seemed, however, that the movie missed a couple of key points that would have helped the audience piece the details together a little bit better.

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Posted feb 7, 2007 11:34 pm pt

angelsxo

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This movie is an off center movie which leaves you confused and a bit bewildered. When Billy, Jims lover, is murdered John Kelso, magazine reporter, stays for the trial the movie takes a twisted turn.

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Posted dec 27, 2006 9:42 pm pt

• [+] Austin Chronicle
  
  89
  A wholly original creation, crossed with shadows and light and the everyday madness of Savannah and its remarkable citizens.

  by Marc Savlov | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Reader
  
  80
  Eastwood essentially uses the Lady Chablis the same way he did a few extended Charlie Parker solos in Bird--as unbridled, inventive improvisations that challenge the well-rehearsed "head" arrangements of everyone else.

  by Jonathan Rosenbaum | Read Full Review »
• [+] The New Republic
  
  80
  Two aspects stand out. Clint Eastwood is not the first person we might think of to direct a film of leisurely pace, concerned with ghosts and a transvestite...Then there's Kevin Spacey, who grows before our eyes. [29 December 1997, p. 28]

  by Stanley Kauffmann | Read Full Review »
• [+] ReelViews
  
  75
  Eastwood has captured a peculiar yet involving slice of life.

  by James Berardinelli | Read Full Review »
• [+] Christian Science Monitor
  
  75
  Kevin Spacey gives a richly nuanced performance as the accused killer, and director Clint Eastwood makes the sometimes sordid story less sensationalistic than it might have seemed in less accomplished hands.

  by David Sterritt | Read Full Review »
• [+] Variety
  
  70
  An outstanding lean film trapped in a fat film's body.

  by Todd McCarthy | Read Full Review »
• [+] Washington Post
  
  70
  Always entertaining. But someone seems to have thrown away the metronome into the Spanish moss outside. "Midnight," which finally draws to a halt after two and a half hours, has a lot of acting, a bit of soul and no rhythm.

  by Desson Thomson | Read Full Review »
• [+] San Francisco Examiner
  
  63
  This is a movie that is wonderful on the peripherals.

  by Barbara Shulgasser | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Sun-Times
  
  63
  Clint Eastwood's film is a determined attempt to be faithful to the book's spirit, but something ineffable is lost just by turning on the camera: Nothing we see can be as amazing as what we've imagined.

  by Roger Ebert | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  
  63
  A sputtering marathon of a movie. It starts, it stops, it sprints, it stumbles, occasionally following a straight narrative line, frequently darting off on colourful if pointless tangents, often commanding our attention yet never sparking our imagination.

  by Rick Groen | Read Full Review »
• [+] The New York Times
  
  60
  Yet for all the film's hard work at capturing Savannah's spirit, there is seldom enough context to make these characters seem anything but adorably whimsical to excess.

  by Elvis Mitchell | Read Full Review »
• [+] Washington Post
  
  60
  Like the South, the movie is sumptuous and somnolent.

  by Rita Kempley | Read Full Review »
• [+] Entertainment Weekly
  
  58
  By the time Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is over, it may send more than a few viewers scurrying off to the bookstore. They'll surely want to see what all the fuss was about.

  by Owen Gleiberman | Read Full Review »
• [+] USA Today
  
  50
  Regrettably, it's the movie version of John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a book still thumping its chest on the hardback best-seller list after more than three years.

  by Mike Clark | Read Full Review »
• [+] Newsweek
  
  50
  The fans who have kept John Berendt's nonfiction tale on the best-seller list for more than three years may come away feeling they've seen "Perry Mason" on Valium. [1 December 1997, p.87]

  by David Ansen | Read Full Review »