Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This is probably a spoiler. I watched the film wondering what reality was being depicted. The movie runs nearly two hours covering a span of maybe a dozen years. The man's (James Garner's) real time might have been anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Understanding that the entire film is the man's nightmare is the key to figuring it out. It seems that the movie was not really released in the US, I think it had little popular appeal because the viewer needs to think in order to understand it. I disagree with James Garner's assessment that it was the worst movie he ever made, rather I believe it might be the darkest and artsiest film he ever made. The man's name is Edward Volner, it took two viewings to figure that out. It is important to understand that the film is a recurring nightmare, pay attention to the opening shot and the final few seconds. The unhappy lower class house wife, Angela Landsbury, thrusting a handful of cash on him, Jack Gilford happily feeding him free of charge, the crowd that comes to his aid thwarting an over zealous policeman form a flash protest mob complete with signs; make little sense until the viewer realizes the entire film is a dream.

I'm not surprised to see mixed reviews for this odd, artsy and challenging film. I only caught it by accident, as part of the day-long tribute to James Garner aired by TCM a few days after he'd passed away. Despite being a life-long fan of Garner, this was a film I'd missed. When it started, I didn't even know what it was. For the first few minutes, I didn't know it starred Garner.This turned out to be an extremely fortuitous way to experience Mister Buddwing. I was enthralled by the visual style even before I knew what I was watching. As the narrative evolved, I became even more enthralled. This is a miraculously good film - perhaps not perfect, but so audacious it really deserves a 10 out of 10. (And I hand them out *very* grudgingly.)There are many things to enjoy here, but I'll focus on just three aspects of the film.First and foremost, there's the magnificent black and white photography of New York City in the 1960s. It works both as pure composition and as a visual tribute to the 'old' New York, that dark, grimy one that was already fading into history when this film was made. I'd say this film does New York at least as well as Woody Allen's Manhattan, and in support of a far more clever drama. (I'm a huge Allen fan, but I see Manhattan as one of his rare failures - aside from the photography.)Second, there's the clever structure. Some reviews have noted that it does work like a stage play. But in a good way. The story progresses by a series of repeated approximations. Several different women all serve as surrogates for Buddwing's lost love, Grace. Each portrays a different aspect of this phantom lady, and each helps to flesh out a different aspect of Buddwing's life - both for him and for us. Bits of dialog echo from one version to another. Mirrors play an important role, accentuating the reverberations. This film is as good a cinematic simulation of a drug trip, or a lucid dream, as you're going to find. You really start to feel that there's a memory that's just escaping you, a reality that you can't quite recapture.Third, there are the performances. Angela Lansbury deserves special credit for her frowsy blonde, an uncharacteristic part that reminds us of this lady's true acting prowess. The other women are all excellent, in their own ways. Suzanne Pleshette is adorable, Katharine Ross at her most wholesomely appealing, and Jean Simmons at her most acidic. Jack Gilford has a wonderful bit as "Mr. Schwartz," and George Voskovec is perfect as 'God.' ("You're crazier than I am," wails Garner.)Hollywood rarely creates this kind of 'art' film. Mister Buddwing could be slipped into a Fellini, or Antonioni or Bergman retrospective, without seeming out of place. But where so many 'art' films are merely 'arty', Mister Buddwing gets it right. It's got human drama, wit and enormous style. It's not merely vague, or obscure; it's visionary. It's about something.In short, I can't recommend this film highly enough. Don't expect The Thrill of It All, or Maverick, or Murphy's Romance. Think of Mister Buddwing as a more-romantic companion to 36 Hours. Or a 1960s equivalent of Forest Gump. This is clearly intended as a film about redemption, not of just one man, but of an entire generation that was just awakening to the realization that it had lost its way.

Whether you interpret the plot line as a vehicle for allegory or an ultimately flawed exercise in suspense, the highly successful photography, editing and musical scoring in "Mister Buddwing" deserves an audience. It is difficult to imagine a more urgent, dread-tinged, unsettling adrenaline rush as that brought on by the Jean Simmons sequence culminating in the Harlem craps game, even if the climax following is a bit of a pedestrian let-down. Sam Buddwing's grown-up Holden Caufield-like exile in urban wilderness - a bleak mid-1960s Manhattan where he encounters memorable, goodish Samaritans tainted by their own agendas(Jack Gilford as a cafeteria owner preoccupied with Judaism and Angela Lansbury in one of her trampish roles, but distinguishable from, say, "The World of Henry Orient" by her lower social class) and a park vagrant claiming to be God make for a very rich cinematic experience, and the final camera shots, essentially the opening ones in reverse, provide a strikingly satisfying coda.Notable for its time are a couple of overt homosexual references which don't seem to be significant to the plot, but contribute a degree of realism probably intended to be grittily alienating. In the most poorly-handled scene in the film, where Buddwing is accosted by a beat cop and a crowd, unlikely in its sheer numbers, quickly forms around them, an out gay man makes an appearance which is pretty significant considering the pre-Stonewall setting.

Mr. Buddwing is budding with pretentiousness. Poorly shot, poorly acted, dark and dreary in content and in living (or deathly) black and white. The supposedly "deep" philosophy such as a line about our hero being "Every Man" isn't lost on us. But rather than having us gasp at its pithiness, like the rest of the film, it will only have you shaking your head at the silliness of it all...if not nodding to sleep.A real shame because of the great stars, Jean Simmons and James Garner, both of whom are outstanding talents. But even they can't save this thing. It's like watching valuable jewelry sink in a mudhole. They can't escape, try to sparkle as they do, from their dull, dull, deadly dull dialogue that tries to be oh so deep and thoughtful. It's like a very bad Twilight Zone episode gone terribly wrong.The only suspense in this film is whether you can make it through the entire thing. And to top it off, the whole thing seems very dated from the music to the "B" movie, film noir style.Leave Mr. Buddwing alone. He doesn't know who he is and you're better off not finding out.