smooth_op_85 So, I decided to watch Sal because I was looking for gay themed films and this one popped up. Big mistake, it dramatizes the last day of his life but the key word is drama, why not put something interesting for us to hold our attention? Speaking of attention, I was so bored by the 30 minute mark that I ended up surfing the web and I am sure I missed nothing important For a film about the last day of an American icon, they should've taken some dramatic license or something. It really made me feel like I was REALLY watching someone's last day, bogged mundane and all the minutiae. In other words, I can't finish this film anymore than I finished the 3 rd and 4th season of In The House...it was just too painful for me to continue watching, it's boredom level is Prometheus...and that movie was flippin' boring!

mark.waltz It's evidenced by the number of credits he has per year that James Franco is wearing himself thin. As an actor, I've seen a handful of his films, his recurring "guest part" on "General Hospital" and even his Broadway stint in "Of Mice and Men". For this film about two time Oscar nominated hunk Sal Mineo, I expected so much more, but all I got was a glimpse into his doing regular daily activities, like going to a doctor, a gym, talking to an agent, confiding to a friend about a trick, and planning to move his L.A. play to Broadway, as well as make a movie where a controversial scene about gay rape is in danger of being rewritten. I never once believed that Val Lauren looked anything like Sal Mineo. Sure, he's dark haired and muscular, but he lacks the boyish look that even with a mustache (which Lauren does not have), Sal pretty much kept to the end. His version of Sal is presented as a nice guy, friendly with the cleaning lady, cracking jokes with the neighbors and inviting his gardener to his play. A phone conversation with the unseen Jill Haworth gives a hints but not much more than what you hear him saying to her. So he's a nice guy, all the more tragic for somebody murdered later that night, but this is a film, so where is the plot?The major problem with this film is the camera, often closely held behind two actors in a scene together that makes them completely blurry. Location footage of L.A. is blurred too, as if to hide 2011 in the 1976 setting. I used to know people who lived in the building where Mineo was killed, and there's not one closeup of it. I am sorry to have to report that this look at an icon I really admired is strangely emotionally empty, even if its director was passionate about the subject. A look at Mineo's rise and decline, then his hopes of a great comeback, might have had a larger impact, especially when the inevitable tragedy occurs.

Desertman84 Sal is the depiction of the final 24 hours of 1950's teen idol Sal Mineo.It features Val Lauren in the title role and it was directed by James Franco.Sal Mineo is a talented actor that appeals to teen-agers during the 50's.He was an Academy Award nominee and was known for his roles such as Exodus and two of the three James Dean films,Rebel Without Cause and Giant.Later in his career,he has become open about his homosexuality and tried to find his identity both as an actor and a director.He found positive reviews as bisexual burglar in his stage performance in a play entitled," P.S. Your Cat Is Dead".But one day after returning home from a rehearsal,he was stabbed to death.Lauren did a great job in his portrayal of Mineo.Too bad that we are left basically to only the last 24 hours of his life rather than a portrayal of his life and legacy in Hollywood.Too bad that Sal should have been treated better rather than just featuring his last day on earth where nothing is essentially told except his death in the finale.Overall,a better story could have been told.

velitrae As a fan of Sal Mineo and James Franco I was looking forward to this film. With a short running time I began to worry as the 30 minute mark was approaching and I was not getting into it.This movie has parts similar to "The Brown Bunny" that terrible movie consisting of filming a driver wandering aimlessly and then ending with a surprisingly graphic unrelated sex scene. Only "Sal" omitted the surprise since of course the movie tells you at the very beginning how he dies. If you like Terrence Malick movies (I don't) with a dose of "Investigative Reports" you may enjoy it. If you are a fan of Sal Mineo you won't. The kind-of epilogue regarding the arrest of the killer seemed like an afterthought.Franco said his intent was to capture the mundane typical activities of someone on the last day of their life without them knowing it is their last day. That doesn't make for an interesting movie. I suppose if the character was fictional and the death at the end was a shocking out-of-nowhere surprise it could be entertaining, like a "Twilight Zone" episode. But Sal Mineo was a real person and we know already that he was murdered in a pointless random act.The tediousness of the opening workout scene (as appealing as a shirtless Val Lauren is), the smoking scenes, and the severely close-up conversation scenes, just dragged on and on. Even the play rehearsal scene was tedious and didn't tell us anything. I wanted to know who were the important people in Sal's life? Who were his friends? Did he have a relationship? Maybe he really was a has-been actor desperately trying to convince friends to fill the seats of his off-off-off-Broadway play. But I was hoping for more. The copy-paste of real Sal's "Rebel" Oscar-nominated performance upped the contrast of what this movie could have been.