I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Thanks for the memories!

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This could have been a fantastic movie in the hands of someone like Cronenberg, Lynch or another with similar visual courage. Alas what we get, is this bland tale of excess in the literary department of a college in NY during WW II . Why and how these guys actually birthed a movement is very hard to see. Acting and the depiction of the time and place is very good (but whoever thought that, suddenly inserting contemporary rock music in an otherwise completely conventional period film is a good idea, is really a moron of epic proportions).Luckily it seems there are plenty of material to make some interesting films from the youths of both Burroughs and Kerouac so lets hope somebody with a more daring visual vision will get to that.

This is one of those movies that I can only understand and evaluate after researching about it. It all begins when Allen Ginsberg joins the prestigious and ultra-conservative Columbia University during World War II. There, he will meet a group of unconventional friends, with pleasure in breaking rules and confronting authorities. From this embryo, as I came to discover, would be born the "Beat Generation" (I had never even heard of it before watching). The script, however, seems indecisive. I've never been able to figure out whether the movie is about the "Beat Generation" or simply about Allen Ginsberg, the way he met his friends and the homicide related to them. This indefinition made the film tedious, with many dead moments that would have been cut off if there was some certainty on the subject. John Krokidas was unable to direct the film toward a clear and definite goal. He just went shooting.Another problem of this film are the characters. Everything revolves around Ginsberg, the only truly well-built character. All the others are sketches and drafts, and the way the actors worked did not help mitigate that. Dane DeHaan is a stranger to me, has managed to show psychological depth and showed some talent, but his character is too iconoclastic and unpleasant for me to care about it and the same can be said of all other characters and actors. Daniel Radcliffe, who was left with the main role, has a lot of talent and is the best actor here, but his character is quite unpleasant. Another problem here was the feeling that the film makes a kind of apology to homosexuality, something that I definitely don't approve. I know the mainstream thinking of our society tends to accept it as a different form of love, but I have the right to disagree and think otherwise without anyone being able to criticize me for it. We shouldn't live in mental dictatorships, in which mainstream dictates thoughts and opinions that we all must accept. Unfortunately, this happens and these apologies end up appearing very much like subliminal fascist or communist propaganda, used by authoritarian regimes that most people condemn. To what extent, using the cover of our democracy and mass media, does society force us to accept opinions or keep quiet if we disagree with them? It's a rhetorical question, but pertinent.By way of conclusion, I say that I expected something else from this film. A more focused, goal-oriented script would have been more interesting. A more neutral and natural approach to the characters' sexuality would have removed the apologetic and propagandistic burden I've mentioned. More elaborate characters, capable of building empathy with public, would have resulted in greater public involvement and increased our interest in what's happening. It's a boring, tiring movie that only those who enjoy counterculture or the Beat movement will appreciate. About the crime the film portrays, I was left with the feeling that it is a mere detail of the plot.

I watched this movie a little while ago purely because Daniel Radcliffe is in it and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was actually a fantastic movie. Daniel portrays Allen so well and I think they couldn't have cast a better actor for the role. The character Lucien was also amazing. Dane did wonderfully in this movie. I loved him in Lawless but I definitely like him more here. This movie instantly became one of my favourite movies and I plan to watch it multiple times. Truly amazing film. I highly recommend it. If you like any movie about poets, you will like it. If you like modern movies set in older decades, you will like it. I wish everyone would go out and buy this movie. I don't think it got enough credit for how wonderful it truly is. If you have not seen this yet, please do yourself a favor and watch it.

i just read burroughs' and kerouac's novel "and the hippos where boiled in their tanks" and i was so excited to see, that there was a movie based on the same story...let's be brief: the book was so much fun, which the movie was not, it was like a completely different story, over-dramatic and above all so much Hollywood-style, i.e. not even depicting the fun in drugs and useless drinking for instance (which was essential in the beat generations and so much fun in the novel), that's highly insulting for ginsberg, kerouac and burroughs....so much more fun reading the novel, forget about this movie! (except for the amazing cast: radcliffe, de haan (reminds me of young di caprio) and houston)