This Sporting Life

I'm not crazy about Harris' performance, and it's difficult to understand why he has so great affection for Roberts' character, but it's a solid character piece nevertheless.

Tale of brutish ambition and the inevitable damage wrought on the fragile people and objects it hopes to possess. Harris is outstanding in his savage and frustrated attempts to express himself. Anderson composes some starkly beautiful shots and also incorporates some effective rugby league scenes.

Excellent film.

A stark, bleak downer of a film, centered around a relationship obviously doomed from the start. There really isn't a single bright moment to be found, and Anderson lets every depressing moment play out in harsh realism. Richard Harris is superb in the lead, seething with brutality and frustration like a British Brando. The narrative, told partly in flashback, does occasionally make the chronology confusing.

O pranto de um ídolo estreava há 60 anos na Turquia. Richard Harris sempre me lembrou Marlon Brando, seja fisicamente, seja nas nuances da atuação, acho que aqui a proximidade é evidente e a força animal por trás disso só engrandece o filme. Box Versátil British New Wave volume 2.

Richard Harris imitating Brando and hitting women isn't nearly as compelling or pathos-laden as Anderson seems to think it is. Hard to believe this is the same guy who made O Lucky Man.

Really well-made film with a tour-de-force performance (possibly an all-time great) by Richard Harris.

I had high hopes for this one - however I was a little underwhelmed by the cinematic style. I can get behind the idea of British free cinema, as long as I don't have to watch any more of them.

Great character study buoyed by fantastic performances and unrelenting direction. The non linear narrative felt unnecessarily confusing but, with the strength lying in the emotions of the characters and harsh ambiance, it wasn't a big problem.

Psychotic.

It has a lot of clarity... which sometimes almost makes it blunt or melodramatic, but which may also save the movie from pretentiousness. I guess it may be dark enough without obscuring anything on top of that. The excellent acting really helps it work.

Maybe about half an hour too long (although having said that, I don't know what I'd cut out of it). Melodramatic bursts of music at the start and finish. We also get to (or have to) hear Harris warming up for "MacArthur Park" several years later.