mrwwe-95402 I've seen some of PTA's films recently like There Will Be Blood, Magnolia and Boogie Nights. And it's only natural that I really wanted to see Inherent Vice, given that it's a PTA film and has, one of my favourites, Joaquin Phoenix as the lead. The plot summary seemed a bit okayish. But so are the summaries of other Anderson's films. So I had some kind of hope despite the low rating it had.I start the movie, 20 minutes in and I totally lost track of what the hell was happening. For a moment, I thought "Okay maybe I just had a good lunch and I wanna sleep". I sleep, then I watch the movie from the beginning. NO CHANGE. The movie becomes painfully self indulgent as it progresses with some laughs here and there. I swear no viewer, without reading the novel, could tell the complete plot. And no, this isn't The Matrix or Interstellar or Donnie Darko, where the necessity for a complex plot is mandatory.I literally had to read the synopsis every 5 minutes to understand what's going. I know that I'm not that dumb, and I do like art films (Tree of Life, The Fountain). But this is not art. Sadly from a great director. Acting is just fine. Phoenix isn't even interested or that's his character perhaps, I don't know, I really didn't care to be honest. Josh Brolin and Owen Wilson just want to get a break from their usual brand of films.Overall, inherent vice is an incoherent mess and please don't hesitate to say this films sucks just because its from Paul Thomas Anderson. Stay away or watch other genuinely great PTA films.

merelyaninnuendo Inherent ViceA concrete material throughout the course of the movie with more than enough content to feed the audience even for 148 minutes, is a script that does not come often onto Paul's table for it is completely a plot driven movie. Inherent Vice has a lot to offer, complex plots and sub-plots, amusing verbal sparring and eerie characters but it takes a lot of homework to bind them all and project it onto the screen which is accomplished in here for the most part of the movie. Paul Thomas Anderson's seventh installment is admirable and plausible in context of art but doesn't demand attention of the viewers which may come off as a bit downer considering there is a lot to intake. Joaquin Phoenix is the key that glues each and every character and sequences in this overlong drive and he pulls it off with the help of a great supporting cast like Josh Brolin, Katherine Waterston and Owen Wilson. Inherent Vise is witty but low on drama, has reasonable content but lacks gripping screenplay and has stellar performances but contains lots of bumps down the road.

albertbullock-55740 Sorry, I'm just writing here to correct some of the idiots on this website. Do you really think that the amazing PTA would accidentally make the plot hard to follow? No he wouldn't. It was a conscious choice from PTA so it would be faithful to the book it was based apon by Thomas Pynchon. The book and film aren't really about the plot that the audience is desperately trying to follow, it's about the paranoia and the fear of unknown during the transitional period from the 60's to the 70's, with the war on drugs, the hippy life style coming to an end (poor doc), the Charles Manson killings all happening at the same time. Everyone during this period, like our main character and many of the other characters in the film, was at a stage of confusion as they tried to piece together what was happening in the world, who to trust etc. Which is also exactly what the audience is trying to do as well, it's quite genius if you think about it that way. Proving that Inherent Vice is a notable candidate in PTA's hall of fame. Also don't complain about the fact its hard to pin point a genre on this, when was the last time you've seen a PTA film and have actually managed to label its precise genre.

sol- Hired to investigate a mysterious disappearance, a 1970s hippie private detective's search efforts are hampered by oddball characters, the allure of drugs and 'free love' in this offbeat crime drama from Paul Thomas Anderson. With dissolve and overlap edits in plentiful supply, as well as Oscar nominated costumes that are both true to the era and inventive, 'Inherent Vice' is as good-looking a film as any by Anderson - yet with many mixed reviews out there, it has proved to be one of his most divisive films with event ardent fans turning their back. The dislike is understandable. The film is populated with so many principal characters that there is never the chance to know any of them in any depth, not even the protagonist. Much of the film is also accompanied by voice-over narration that does little other than spell out what could easily be surmised. At the same time though, the film has at least a couple of remarkable performances. While he does not have much of a character to work with, Joaquin Phoenix's acting range is incredible when one considers that the milquetoast star of the previous year's 'Her' is the same actor playing the disheveled PI here. Josh Brolin also brings some welcome comic relief with his hard-nosed police detective who has a soft spot for ice cream treats and who may not be as different from Phoenix as initial appearances would have it. Whether these two notable performances are enough to support a rambling two-and-a-half hour feature is debatable though, and this is therefore a film best approached with caution.