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Rating:  - ONE BUSY "LITTLE TRAMP"! WORTH SEEING FOR DOWNEY'S PERFORMANCE ALONE!
'Chaplin' is a difficult film to pull off for at least two reasons, first... who could possibly portray Charlie Chaplin and his genius?... and how do you fit this guy's entire story into one film? Chaplin had one heck of a complicated, long life with many severe ups and downs! Fortunately for us, they got some of these important factors right. The film runs well over two hours, but I never felt truly satisfied with the detail of many scenes. The biggest flaw is that some areas of his life are whisked by so fast it's hard to grasp everything.
Robert Downey Jr. should get a lot of credit as without his believable portrayal of this man, the movie could never work at all. It's a very interesting movie with great performances, but it's not a great movie. The DVD has a very good transfer, but lacks in any worthy extras.
Rating:  - Good transfer to DVD, but not anamorphic
This review refers to the 1998 DVD edition, the only edition available as of this writing. "Chaplin" is a well-crafted, well-acted biography of the famous silent-screen actor/comedian. The transfer of this 1993 film to DVD is adequate. The format is letter-boxed widescreen (not anamorphic--there are black bars on all sides of the image on a large-screen TV. The side bars are not seen on a smaller screen TV). The picture is fairly sharp, the colors are good, sound quality is fine. The film has an old look about it, but this was probably the intended effect. This is the kind of movie you will watch more than once, so it's worth the purchase price. Highly recommended!
Rating: - Downey and the cast are top notch
I actually met Robert back in the day when they were filming this. He was in Charlie Chaplin character and didn't speak a word - used only expressions and cracked us up. It was funny, then when I finally saw the film just this year, I realized how talented this man is, and often with talent comes addictions etc. If you've seen Iron Man, Downey is having a great comeback! Chaplin is a really candid look at Mr. Chaplin's real life, the silent films, the era,the politics of old Hollywood etc. I tried to rent it but the store didn't have it, so I purchased a copy and plan to watch this one many more times. The cast is amazing, and everyone's performances are right on.
Rating: - Chaplin
Robert Downey Jr. nailed it! A wonderful well done movie! I think any Charlie Chaplin fan would appreciate it.
Rating: - So Right To Have Remained British
It is probably not the best film ever made about Charlie Chaplin, and I even think it is far behind Charlie Chaplin's own autobiography on which it is supposed to be based. But it makes a couple of points rather well. First, show business is business first of all. Brutal, expeditious, pitiless, cruel, full of hate and with hardly any love, except the illusion of a companionship they call love in Hollywood. But we know that. And even the FBI or McCarthy could not touch that: business money is business money and cannot be spoiled even if the owner is a communist or at least is accused of being one. Second, McCarthyism was an ugly adventure in the USA, but it is shown as having run in the texture of the country from the very start and particularly after the Russian revolution. The best part about it is that it made American politicians suspicious of anything that was not lauding the USA as THE ONLY country of freedom (except of course for those that have been declared unwanted characters, or anything that could in anyway seem to be supporting the poor, the working class, the underlings of this egotistic world. The portrait of Edgar Hoover is that of a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and yet nothing but an apparatchik that never leaves his pacifying desk and the comfortable warmth of his office. Third, this film shows so well through Chaplin's own life how the world changed and how no politician can stop it. A politician can make some people suffer, at times a lot when he has the means to go out and wage war, but even so he will not be able to change history, to stop history, to even strand or wreck history. Hitler is the best case at hand. The amount of suffering he caused is enormous and yet did he stop history, did he block it into some eternal barbaric dictatorship? Of course not. And Charlie Chaplin's wisecrack about not having the honor of being a Jew is the best answer anyone could do to any attempt at hijacking history: I don't have the honor of being your victim, and if I were your victim I would be honored to be one of them, to have their company. British wit and humor at the same time as British caustic sarcasm. Beautiful!
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
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