Reds

I watched this in three parts. Which went something like... Part 1: This is awful. I want to remove the editor's eyes, and fix Beatty's. Part 2: Hey, it's Jack Nicholson! And a compelling, non-excruciating character. Part 3: This is engrossing. I care about these characters; I'm being entertained, I'm being educated.

The type of movie that seems like it generated by a computer programmed to win Oscars. Storaro's cinematography is serviceable, but not nearly as impressive as his other work. Louise Bryant is somewhat unsympathetic and never really seems to be anything more than Reed's accessory. There's some good dialogue and Beatty points out the failings of the Communist Revolution. But nothing about the film really excels, except Maureen Stapleton's performance.

Typical case of hubrid; this time the victim being Warren Beaty - writer, director, starring, followed by the ‘Wow! Did he really do everything by himself?!’-oscar (I have to admit, I am sensitive to someone being put on a pedestal). But it’s not good: the direction comes across as rushed and messy, the acting (especially by Beaty and Keaton) comes across as rushed and messy too, or maybe that all logically stems from a bad script/scenario. I waded halfway, then turned it off.

Warren Beatty's ambitious historical epic evokes Doctor Zhivago, tatters between comedy and semi-serious radical politics, and is somewhat jarringly intercut with documentary-style talking heads reconstructing the life and times of the protagonist. The result is about as respectable as one could imaginably expect from such a premise - by no means great - and I pat myself on the back for sitting through three-and-a-quarter hours of Beatty the actor.

What i learned from this, above anything else, is that even the most well-meaning, heartfelt, and unabashedly pro-Leftist Hollywood historical melodrama is still ultimately just a Hollywood historical melodrama. Also if you're insane enough to watch a three hour movie hoping you might hear some good Stephen Sondheim music you're better off suffering through Dick Tracy.

Reds is boring enough to make me take four days to watch it, but good enough for me not to mind.

"You don't rewrite what I write!" It's more about the individual relationships and when the film realizes this, it works better. John Reed isn't a saint; he's egotistical and beholden to his beliefs.The documentary aspect is fascinating but without any indication (aside from a list of names at the beginning) of who these interviewees are, the resonance is virtually non-existent. It's a stylistic choice that could work, but it falls flat. Keaton does great work evolving Louise beyond a sterotype.

More likeable than interesting. Performances are strong, Keaton's especially. Beautiful, beautiful score.

this is a tremendous epic movie, clocking in at over three hours it still is packed, with every moment worth watching. beatty and keaton are fantastic and have some great chemistry. beatty definitely deserved the oscar for this movie, hell he deserved two.

An intellectual bohemia that couldn't withstand the real world. The love affair parallels the politics in that sense.

Well-crafted relationship Christmas movie with a background in revolutionary politics.

Real romantic

Odd docu-drama that never quite settles in to telling a moving love story or becoming a political thriller, and certainly takes its time making a (non-)decision. I think I liked Keaton's angry moments the best; I'm going to have to re-think where I stand on O'Neill. (Somewhat ironically, I was interrupted during this movie by a local candidate going door-to-door for votes. She managed to say her piece in about five minutes.)

A very good but overlong historical epic that is strongest in portraying the relationship between Beatty and Keaton, who have great chemistry. For me, the political aspects were a little plodding at times. There were some great scenes, but some of that dragged at times. The documentary structure is interesting but it's unclear if these are actors or actual people who knew them--they're never identified, which is an odd choice. A pretty good film, though.

Reds was unbelievably far ahead of its times with its messaging as a big, bold pro-socialist, pro-union, pro-revolution, pro-Bolshevik movie. Sadly, it's still lightyears ahead of the current times.

Well acted, but listen, if your movie is nearly three and a half hours long, maybe you can cut that scene of a dog trying to get into a room with people having sex. In fact, you can cut a lot of things. I mean for Chrissake this isn't a History Channel miniseries!

I admire the risks Beatty took making an expensive film about a subject that Americans are not all that likely to warm up to. I wish I admired the film as much. I think it has a few problems. Beatty is not bad in the lead role, but I think he's miscast. He does alright conveying Reed's passion and intensity, but while I don't think he's a dumb man, he does have a tendency to come off as a vacant pretty boy on film. and that is not this man. He also chooses to focus primarily on the romance

A look at an under-explored period in American history that engages with the major political questions of the 20th century with a nuance rare even in small budget films, centered the volatility of love in the midst of political and creative turmoil—a framing almost never undertaken by romantic movies without being overwrought. Somehow the synthesis works, though the film can be tedious and struggles at certain critical points. Also Diane Keaton steals scenes for over 3 hours, which is great.

Tekrar izledim. Aklımdakinden kötü geldi. + Diane Keaton ne sinir bozucuymuş bu filmde yav

Beatty conducts a long, bloodless epic about socialists shouting at communists and vice versa. He's okay as the lead but this is mostly kept afloat by Keaton and the supporting cast, especially Nicholson & Stapleton. Could have easily cut the first hour in half, also how exactly did they travel from France to Russia by train in 1917?

As a producer/director, Warren Beatty made nothing but passion projects. This obsessive vision is one of the things I find most fascinating about him. Reds has the veneer of a Hollywood epic, but it's also a small scale, left-leaning story about the complicated romance between two socialist activists, so it doesn't comfortably fit in with the rest of the Hollywood landscape. Just like Beatty himself, I guess.

Really good, but I felt the weight of the running time a little bit. It coulda been maybe 20-30 minutes shorter I think,

Too sprawling to really hit hard in any kind of sustained fashion, Reds succeeds best when Diane Keaton's Louise Bryant takes center stage. The conflict within her character between independence and becoming a dependent in love is thought-provoking. However, the film is also interested in Reed's relationship and forays into politics, as well as Bryant's artistic and journalistic pursuits. With so much going on, even the good bits suffer.

It breaks my heart.

I had never heard about this John Reed guy, nor about the events the film was based on, and so the whole political and historical aspect was completely lost on me, and I didn't really care about it anyway. The first half was pretty dull because of this, and then I became interested in the personal lives of the characters which made it watchable - though I still found them to be annoying people.

If It wasn't for that completely unbearable first hour I'd give this movie a much better rating. Seriously skip to when they go to Russian and you'd have a great film. With the first hour included, the movie makes me hate the main characters for being so unbearable. All of this is in despite of how interesting the last 2/3's of the film are.

Handsomely mounted epic can't escape the 'Litany Of Incident' syndrome in the last third, but overall is an extraordinary achievement for Beatty, who succeeds strongly as star, director and producer, and elicits superb performances from his cast, especially Keaton's scorching work, and an uncharacteristically quiet and intense supporting performance by Nicholson. Narrative device of witnesses sharing their memories feels clunky, but works better (and more viscerally) than traditional narration.

Boring. Fifteen of the points I gave it are because you see Dianne Keeton nekkid at her prime.

#513

I really didn't expect this to be almost documental. I don't know if the in-between interviews made the movie better or worse. It made it more authentic for sure but it also made you distance yourself from the real core of the movie - the relationship between the two main characters and the influence of strong beliefs. I'm not the biggest fan of Beatty and the story was a bit incoherent at times (as true life stories tend to be). But the movie had heart - it just didn't hit mine.

This film starts weak, then gets better, and toward the end the film gets really good. Be patient and you will be rewarded with this one. I learned a lot, and also enjoyed Beatty's and Keaton's remarkable performances.

"Reds is finally just an appealingly conventional epic movie-star romance with radical trimmings, but it contains several sharper elements that suggest the colorful period it seeks to recreate." - Dan Callahan

I'm not sure if the character study aspect or the political exploration was most interesting but I enjoyed nearly all of it. The 1910s seems to be a period little explored in film, especially on this kind of social and political scale, so even if the construction is not particularly noteworthy it still feels fresh.

The first hour of the film is ninety percent about character and relationships. Sure, everyone is talking about politics, but it all seems like an afterthought. Suffice it to say I cared most about the romance, though I did find the education interesting. It's a good film, well made, but by the end there's so much politics, when we return to the romance I hardly felt anything at all.

Serviceable epic that never blew me away.

Not the epic Beatty thinks it is, but still this is an entertaining film--in spite of its intimidating length--that evokes the bohemian left of the Ragtime era and WWI.

512

One of Keaton's best performances.

The epic scope, beautiful cinematography and great screenplay alone are worth the 200 minutes to see this film. The acting, on the other hand, is merely adequate from the leading parts but excellent from the supporting turns.

This film blew me away. Best biopic I have seen. I might be biased because I'm very interested in left-wing politics. But this movie is more than that. It's a love story, epic, sometimes even almost surreal. And it's a good history lesson. On technical side we have perfect direction and acting by Beatty and cinematography by Storaro, not to mention great supporting cast.

525

I wish all historical romances were as good as this beautiful film.

Beatty's paralyzing perfectionism has caused him to direct only two other films since winning the Oscar for Reds. It's easy to see why. It's so precisely accomplished, so elegantly constructed, so downright monumental in its artful realization that it's hard to conceive of the proper follow-up. It's a study in perfect balance: epic without being overblown, fiercely political without becoming didactic, measured and thorough without ever dragging (despite a runtime comfortably over three hours).

# 478

Documentary style. Interesting History, lovely cinema, very looong

Score based on distant memory. May be a slight overrating.

Brilliant. Moving. Historical.