Review of The Long Goodbye (1973) by Terri H — 08 Jan 2009
God,I love Altman so much. I love his zooms,his overlapping dialogue,his outlandish situations and characters. Everything that I've seen from him is so wildly inventive. This is no different. Elliott Gould gives one of my favorite performances.
I love when characters have little quirks that make them memorable. Gould has those and more. He's essentially,like many have said before,a moralistic 50's detective thrown in the seedy world of the 1970's.
He smokes a cigarette in every scene. No one else does. Everyone else is probably doing too much coke. You might be thinking "Man,this is gonna be a dense whodunnit thriller". It is in some respects but it's no "The Big Sleep".
Altman is more concerned with character interactions rather than pummeling you with plot. You can really say that for most Altman films. I think that's his key to his filmmaking. He enjoys characters first and foremost and lets everything branch off from there.
Don't get me wrong,now. There is an engrossing plot,too, with a stunner of an ending.
This review of The Long Goodbye (1973) was written by Terri H on 08 Jan 2009.
The Long Goodbye has generally received very positive reviews.
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