I love this movie so much

Fresh and Exciting

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

In this anemic comedy of errors, the complications are predictable, and the characters neither endearing nor genuinely eccentric. All in all, an uninspired barroom trifle with fewer laughs than "The Iceman Cometh'.

"Hi-LIfe" tells of a NYC corner pub and the antics of numerous young adults associated with it...a sort of "Cheers" kind of "feel". The plot: He needs to pay off a bookie. His girl friend tells her bro she's preggo and needs the money for an abortion. The bro begin calling in old debts from old friends...etc, etc, etc. With a Christmas time in NYC ambiance, a good cast of second tier actors, and a clever plot, "Hi-Life" has much going for it. Unfortunately, it plays like a tv sitcom with only a modicum of entertainment and a script below the level of the acting talent. Enjoyable stuff for the terminally bored but no sex, nudity, love story, or hilarity.

I loved the fact that the producers of Hi-Life used real Upper West Side locations in this film, including the Hi-Life itself. It tugged at the heartstrings of this former UWS resident, now exiled to Atlanta. The movie itself was tolerable -- mainly because Peter Riegert was in it. Can't have enough Peter Riegert in a movie, as far as I'm concerned. The rest of the cast was amiable, if not very energetic. The story -- which could have been quite clever, with various folks chasing the same $900 for a variety of unethical reasons -- floundered in the face of lackadaisical pacing and cramped, dark cinematography.

I didn't absolutely hate this movie, but I kept waiting for it to get better and it never did. I think I may have laughed once, but now I can't even remember what for.My wife didn't even make it through the first fifteen minutes without falling asleep. Unfortunately, I sat through the entire thing.Actually, I can see a slight twist of humor in that so many of the characters were intertwined... almost like a soap opera where everyone turns out to be related. Still on a scale of 1 to 10, the best I could give it would be a 3.I guess I just expected more from this movie, especially since there were good actors and actresses involved. (Daryl Hannah, Moira Kelly, etc.) I've certainly seen worse movies, but this one did absolutely nothing for me.