Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

SnoopyStyle Abe (Jacob Zachar) wants to sail on a boat to a fantasy island and beyond. His mother Eileen (Dana Delany) is wary of her brother drunk Mort (John Malkovich). Mr. Fletcher (John Goodman) has a trashed boat that he hopes to unload on some unsuspecting fool. Fletcher scrams naive Abe to buy the boat but they need an adult to do the deal. That's where his unsuspecting alcoholic uncle Mort comes in.This is completely lifeless. Bob Meyer is the writer and director. He doesn't seem to have done anything other than act in a few french movies. The big mystery is how such an unknown got so many great actors to be in his film. That mystery is infinitely more interesting than watching this movie. This has no energy and no power. The dialog is lifeless and so are the performances. Jacob Zachar is very annoyingly over confident. If he was some cute young kid, his character might actually work. John Goodman almost gives something but it's drowned out by this meandering badly directed indie.

sainicharlie-21-381476 A great quirky movie, just what you'd expect J.M and J.G to be involved with at this late part of their career. I does sadden me to see how many reviewers have no idea what was attempted yet had no trouble in dashing the movie to the ground.. I watch all types of flicks, from action to whatever the opposite is and there are indeed very forgettable films out there but this is not one of them. No, there's no chase or gun play, no yelling of expletives while holding someone's collar, i suppose that is that is your water, then you will be a gasping fish.The movie is Jim Jarmusch-esque without the art film pretensions. It does deal with alcoholism and impulse-control and bitterness and subterfuge and other essential life stuff. It has great performances from it's stars and the rest. It did capture my attention from start to finish. It does convey the feel of the Northeast in the summer, the mugginess, the grey heat, the flaring tempers, thereby grounding the picture in a present and concrete reality. And there are so many con-men waiting to steal your dough with a good sleight of hand, that this movie has much relevance.

Tim Kidner Sunk without a trace, as this quirky little film obviously did, what with good, respected and serious actors John Malkovich and John Goodman aboard (enough of the puns....)I caught it on Sky Movies premier, partly as I thought it might be a serious drama concerning alcoholism. It isn't but has comedic, jaunty music and amateurish, unconnected fantasy sequences that left me in a constant state of confusion.If one knew the source material (if you actually wanted to) then that might help and whilst Malkovich and Goodman kept it watchable, everything else is a distracting, mawkish blur that makes no sense. The only two user reviews I could find (on IMDb) were obviously fans and so loved it but I wanted an unbiased opinion. It wasn't a total waste of time, with some very good acting, especially from the alcoholic Malkovic, but I couldn't help feel that my time would have been better spent doing something else, or at least, purposeful, like the washing up!I guess that the actual narrative (what there is of one) isn't going to be what attracts you, here, so I'm not going to hurt my brain any further by racking it and trying to write it down. Apologies if that disappoints anyone. It was director Bob Meyer's first and only attempt as writer/director of a movie and it badly shows.

finriikka I loved this simple, little film. Not pretentious at all, compared to most movies I've seen lately. First of all, the mice-en-scene was fantastic with a steam punk feeling: boats, rusty trails, trains. This film made even an ordinary suburban area look interesting. The indoor settings were quite ascetic, but everything was well planned yet realistic. An unknown pearl. I didn't imagine anything with John Goodman could be great, but I got positively surprised - even though his role was to play the funny guy.The main character, Mort, played by Malcovich was very realistic, deep and unintentionally funny, and so were the two boys. If you like realistic but somewhat crazy films that tell about a slice in some people's lives, you must see this.They are marketing this film as a "boat movie". But the funny thing is that I don't even like boats. Still I just picked it up at the DVD-store. I'm glad I did. But the film wasn't actually that muck about boats, actually, but about family relationships, about how it is to be near a drunk, to have dreams, to adjust to how things actually are.