Word: pinsent
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Rowdyman is nearly worthless. None of the characters is interesting: none of the acting is particularly distinguished. Generally an actor cannot be blamed for the lines that he must deliver, but Gordon Pinsent, in the lead role of Will Cole the Rowdyman, forfeited that excuse. He wrote the script...
...first writing effort to see production. The film's promoters claim that Pinsent began writing as a sort of therapy and was encouraged to continue by the favorable reaction of friends. Perhaps he can learn from this particular mistake, and in the future pay some attention to things like character and plot development...
None of the various sequences in the film relates to the others. Cole at one point visits an old man named Stan. Pinsent admitted that the principal reason for writing the visit into the film was to show Cole in a compassionate light, and to redeem him for his earlier nastiness. Stan, played by Will Geer, is also meant to demonstrate the continuity of the roughneck tradition in Newfoundland--in his youth he was supposed to have been a real hell-raiser. But he only comes across as pathetic...
...conversation Pinsent said that he made the film to serve him as an actor's vehicle and to evoke the atmosphere that Will Cole moves in. But the entire effort is too inconsistent to develop any sort of atmosphere, and if it serves Pinsent as a vehicle, his destination is, at the least, problematical...
...good deal easier to love the movie, which succeeds on its own level as a full-out piece of entertainment. The actors-Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent, William Schallert-all perform with precision, and Director Joseph Sargent keeps things moving along at a pace more rapid than a galloping pulse. His camera eye is restless and intricate; he seems to have learned a great deal from John Frankenheimer. The real star of the show, however, is Colossus, portrayed by a real computer complex at Universal City studios. If it only can avoid typecasting, it has a solid future in show...