Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Blistering performances.

The story of the Yippies is full of compelling and amusing characters, and someone will eventually make an entertaining film just revisiting the hi-jinks and hilarity, cutting away before the bummers start piling up. If wreckage is more to your taste, there's a film to be made of that as well.Left on Purpose isn't either film. It passes that low-hanging fruit for who-knows-what. Initially, it feels familiar, as Mayer reminisces about his youth and the Yippies in their heyday. Mayer is a character far, far removed from his glory days, and it's a bit perplexing at first when the film returns to his glamourless life and very uncertain future instead of lingering in his colorful past.The most compelling documentaries are those in which neither filmmaker, subject, not viewer knows where things are headed. That appears to have created a stressful situation for Schein, as Mayer maneuvers first for control of the film and then for control of the filmmaker. The partnership between the two makes for the great drama of the film. Schein clearly did not set out to make a film about a filmmaker's dilemma, and his discomfort is obvious. It was a stroke of freaking genius and a bold-ass move for Schein to let the film follow the story where it led instead of where he had planned.

Mayer Vishner - chronic contrarian, man behind the scenes pulling the strings of the Yippie movement, and close friend and associate of Abby Hoffman - is the down and out subject of this documentary by filmmakers Justin Schein and David Mehlman. He's a 60's stalwart, tending a community garden and subsiding in his west village hovel amid decades of memorabilia and detritus, who agrees to have his life chronicled. Midway through the production though, Mayer decides the subject will be about ending his own life. He's an alcoholic, depressed, and lonely, but has passionate and poignant ideas for what a good life should be. His own outlook is bleak and joining the many colleagues who took their own lives seems an inevitability.Tension abounds as the filmmaker must step from behind the camera to increasingly care for Mayer and challenge his beliefs about his end. The film's sad arc is nevertheless well punctuated with ample hilarity and uplifting moments. Mayer is a genuine character bandying about witticisms both critical and self deprecating. His engagement with the camera and his cohort draws the viewer in, as does the film's pirouettes, challenging the conventional documentary format with unconventional features and quandary: Is the filmmaker directing the subject or is the subject coaxing the director to film him? What are the ethics of training a camera on an impending death? Is doc' film still doc' when the filmmaker becomes part of the story. How can an individual so perceptive about life's simple delights, remain so overly attuned to their impossible acquisition instead? Along the way the audience is treated to a healthy injection of fact-finding and history lesson, including run-ins with influential players of the 60's Anti-war movement. I attended a screening of Left on Purpose at the Doc NYC Festival with several of the film's protagonists and family and friends of Mayer Vishner in the audience. In the Q&A session that followed many contributed their own statements of overwhelming pride for Mayer's life and sublime gratitude for the sensitivity and grace with which the filmmakers told his story. This is a beautiful film about life, and lives, and peace and protest, and deserves to be enjoyed by all.

Anyone who has had a grandparent or who has aging parents must watch this film. It's beautifully shot and despite the outcome, has many humorous moments along the way. It does a wonderful job of brining to light something that we as a society are only just starting to talk about: mental illness. But this film takes it a step further and discusses depression within the aging community. Mayer is a wonderful soul and it's a joy and an privilege to learn all the things he has done to try and better the world in the way of the Yippie movement and the counterculture. The relationship between filmmaker and his subject is also a fascinating part of the film that isn't seen much in documentary. The filmmaker is just as much of a character as Mayer in this film. It's about their relationship with one another and their friendship. I also just read online that the film just was released for educational distribution. I believe that's a wonderful outlet for this film in both the psychological sense as well as from a filmmakers perspective.

I saw the movie two days ago and thought about it for a while. It felt really dragging and depressing. I would say one of the most depressing movies I have ever seen. And it it was not at all necessary. I think the director set to make a movie about an icon of the peace movement in NY and he found a depressed man with a lot of stories. Instead of rising to the occasion and asking questions that would have revealed a really amazing life story and many amazing life stories intertwined with the Mayor's, who was at some point a catalyst for an entire generation, the director became interested instead in the minutia of a depressed old man's life and decided that his role was to deconstruct a hero and and a peace movement symbol. It is sickening and it felt like the director took pleasure in recording long hours of an old man's sad lonely life (who believed the film maker was interested in his story)- and sad and lonely life for good reasons, because the freedom he fought for is nowhere to be seen..There is about a half hour of the movie when this man is shown in his underwear, and the camera lingers on that side of his body for an awkward amount of time..It was cruel and mean to show a man who has done amazing things in his life with such cold detail. If someone was to set a camera on a homeless man's every day life minute to minute and focus on all the ugly and stinky details of poverty, depression and old age combined, that would describe well the atmosphere of the movie. It is a disgusting attempt to get attention by exposing a cultural icon and degrading them while still alive. I don't understand why the family and friends consented and allowed this film. It felt cold and mean and judgmental.The director failed to tell an interesting life story, and he was one of the last people to talk to and get close to this man, This movie could have been great, with another director. This guy did not know what he was looking for , or how to make a movie. It seems that he patched together materials he could get easy access to, and glossed over the interesting past because he only had photography and couldn't figure an interesting way to convey the story. Plus he had a baby, so the final product may have been his decision to wrap up the movie quickly with the material he already had.Watch this if you want to learn how not to make a documentary.