Reviews

Some of the comments about "Return" are amazingly vitriolic and appear to have been written by people who hate independent films in general, or who hate "reunion" movies, or who hate low-budget movies, etc., etc., etc. If your comfort zone is Hollywood films with predictable plots and pretty, more or less interchangeable faces you've seen over and over, why watch this film at all?

There are also some misstatements of fact among the comments--it is amazing that someone thinks that "The Big Chill," a blatant piece of Hollywood plagiarism, preceded and inspired this film--but particularly off base is the remark that few of the actors in the film have many additional credits. Yes, there are several actors with only one to three credits. But more than half of them have numerous credits, some as many as 90, and some as writers and producers as well as actors. Furthermore, many of the credits are excellent--most of the TV credits, for example, are for series that are critically acclaimed. In addition, four or five of the actors are well known and respected in the business, whether they are household names or not. If you can use IMDb well enough to make comments, you can also check the accuracy of such statements before making them.

The film may not seem gripping now, since the reunion thing has been done to death. But it is a very important movie, in terms of advancing the popular acceptance of independent films and, of course, launching John Sayles' brilliant career, one which has contributed in a major way to the culture of this country and indeed the world. And it is still good watching for those who do not expect all films to be about action.

Caught this on late night TV recently, and only watched because I admired Stowe's work in "Playing by Hearts." The constant use of lighting to make everyone's eyes look luminescent, apparently intended to add to the film noir mood, just made you wonder if there was some kind of "aliens are among us" subplot coming up, and disguised Stowe so thoroughly that she was virtually unrecognizable through whole sections of the film. Others have commented on the plot holes, and there are many, not the least of which occur in the climactic scene, where some fine work by Stowe is ruined by the extreme unlikelihood that things could have gone down that way.

In addition to the original movie, "Fame," the TV series is still vibrant and compelling. The music is for the most part still fresh, and the choreography and dance performances are ageless. The characters as well as the dancing and singing give the show an energy that is contagious and leaves you smiling. Of course the series is not for the literal-minded--what musical is?--so if you are bothered by people "spontaneously" bursting into fully-scored singing and fully- choreographed dancing, skip it. If you like music and dance and would enjoy explorations of the dreams and problems of young people by them and the equally-interesting adult faculty of the "Fame" school, you'll love this series. It's particularly good viewing for kids, too.

Of course I'm going to give it a 10. because my uncle played one of the uncredited roles. Actually, it is pretty good as a historic piece--the first quasi-documentary; the grim, moody lighting, the constant smoking that somehow adds to the tension (which you would never see now, especially on the part of FBI agents in public but which is historically accurate.) Some of the trivia comments that real FBI agents played FBI roles, while they might be true, give the impression that all the film's FBI characters were played by real agents. That isn't true--my uncle played the agent who's the language specialist who does the Germnan-English translations.