Maziun This is definitely an unconventional narrative about group of people in small town in Alaska. The writer/director John Sayles wanted to make an unconventional movie that plays with audience expectations . When there is a shotgun hanging on the wall the audience should expect that it will be used in the movie – that's how most movies work. The writers write movies as a mathematical calculation where 2 plus 2 gives 4 . They want to capture life in their movies , but often the shape their own reality based on logic with moral in the end. After watching many movies audience can have certain expectations about where the story is going, what will happen , what could happen and what will be the message.Styles here tries to imitate life as much as it's possible. In the first half of movie we are introduced to characters that don't really play any important part in the second half – the lesbian couple , frustrated fisherman , jolly bartender. In fact "Limbo" is basically two movies in one , similar to "Full metal jacket". The first hour is a movie about people of small town , while the second hour pretends to be a thriller about three people. Calling this movie a "thriller" is a bit misleading , it's certainly no "Deliverance". The acting is fine . Vanessa Martinez is believable as angry teenager , David Strathairn is effectively playing troubled, but good hearted handy-man . Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is lovely as singer who can't settle with her life. There is some nice fun dialogue here and the movie is quite beautifully photographed."Limbo" doesn't work either as thriller or drama . The thriller elements are few and badly done . There is a lot of potential drama here : troubled past of Joe , the love triangle , the mother-daughter relationship. The problem is that everything is done with sensibility of soap opera . I'm sorry , but I wasn't move by anything here. The movie is too slow in some places. There is also an irritating amount of small talk that leads nowhere. And why waste your time of showing characters in the first half of the movie when they don't play any part in the second half . Kris Kristofferson is supposed to be an important character , yet his completely bland.The biggest problem however is the ending . I don't mind open endings that allow the audience to use imagination and decide what happened in the end – "Mechanic" , "Inception", "The Killing of Chinese bookie" and few others. The fans of Sayles say that it was the only way to end the movie and there is some merit in their arguments . However , Sayles himself admitted that he didn't knew how to end the movie and the ending is the result of that . It feels like the movie misses a reel. In my opinion it's awful ending."Limbo" is kinda interesting experiment , but after two viewings I still think it's an ambitious failure. I give it 3/10.

merklekranz The first half of "Limbo" has strong character development. Unfortunately only a small number of those characters have any bearing on the remainder of the film. For example, the culture clash between the Alaskans and the tourist industry, was totally gratuitous. There is also an inordinate amount of small talk that leads nowhere. All of this could be forgiven, if once the story kicks into gear, with the mother, daughter, and David Strathairn stranded on a remote island, something happened. Unfortunately the second half in the wild, is tedious and boring. I recommend fast forwarding every time the daughter picks up the diary. All the fine acting, and beautiful scenery, cannot hide the fact that this movie is way too long for such slight material, and the conjectural ending is totally unacceptable. - MERK

noralee "Limbo" continues John Sayles travels around the continent to find distinctive regionalisms and he portrays small town Alaska with a real authentic feel. The audio and video were out of synch for the first 15 minutes so I missed some of a key scene where the singer breaks up with her boyfriend through a song, which was too bad as the cover songs are terrific, from Tom Waits to Richard Thompson's "Dimming of the Day." The acting was excellent, particularly, Vanessa Martinez as a very believable teenager. David Strathairn was both restrained and passionate. I just wasn't completely convinced that Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio's character had gone through changes to be at peace with herself. Kris Kristofferson again does a bad guy scarily convincingly.But the surprise "limbo" conclusion ruined the film for me and virtually everyone else in the audience also groaned.(originally written 7/12/1999)

Theo Robertson I missed the opening credits of LIMBO therefore I didn`t realise that the director was John Sayles which is of some importance if you`re going to watch this movie As it was I thought I was going to be watching an indie production similar to THE SHIPPING NEWS with a very slow burning romantic drama set in a cold region of North America and for at least half its running time LIMBO plays out in this way with long boring scenes set in bars and fish factories . Singer Donna de Angelo meets Joe who`s a fisherman , but there`s some fore shadowing that Donna`s daughter Noelle is bitterly jealous about this relationship and I had thought the film`s climax will revolve around a confrontation involving this jealousy . However about halfway through the running time we`re whalloped in the face as the movie moves in a different direction with Joe , Donna and Noelle fighting for their very lives Being an indie production LIMBO plays out entirely differently from how it would if it was produced by a Hollywood studio , and to be honest I`m still not sure if that`s a good or bad thing . Opinion on this page is very divided as to the merits of LIMBO so it may be a good idea to familarise yourself with John Sayles previous work before you see this movie