If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

I have watched this movie 4 or 5 times on HBO However, it was only after noticing one or two scenes that looked somehow familiar first viewing that we realized it was the Green Light movie project. The films title wasn't mentioned very much in the Greenlight series..it was just "the film"The critics of this movie seem to be Greenlight Runners Up who failed to get the award. Since all their comments have nothing to do with the movie but are a critique surrounding its creation. The plot scenario is hilarious,.... the British humor is where I grew up.Lots of sour grapes in rotten tomatoes.,

The Leisure Class is the film green lit by the fourth season of Project Greenlight, this year produced by HBO and won by neophyte filmmaker Jason Mann.For those of you unfamiliar with Project Greenlight, it is a competition produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (and previously co-produced by Chris Moore who was inexplicably absent this season) in which one winner gets to make a movie. The applicants are typically burgeoning cinema creators or drowning creatives who long ago took the safe route of a standard job. After a hiatus, the fourth season finally returns after a ten year lull, and this time New York film student Jason Mann won. Initially Mann was to direct a film written by season one winner Pete Jones called "Not Another Pretty Woman" but after some finagling, Mann won over HBO and was able to direct his own project, The Leisure Class.I'm a huge fan of the heart and premise of Project Greenlight – give someone, who would otherwise not have a chance at breaking into Hollywood, the opportunity to make a movie. There is something interesting about watching these bright eyed individuals learn about the indie film maker's experience dealing with a studio, a la getting thrown into the deep end. Without fail though, you end up cheering for the Greenlight winner and inevitably form a bias in your experience of the final project. In an effort to truly watch the film with favoritism, I refrained from watching the series after episode two and skipped right to the movie.The premise for The Leisure Class is not complicated in anyway, a British man named William is about to marry into an 'old money' Connecticut family. This happy occasion is turned on its head when William's eccentric brother turns up and the truth of William's pedigree and intentions can no longer be hidden.The Leisure Class as a film is riddled with problems from start to finish, which makes us shudder at the thought of the state of Not Another Pretty Woman, the initial screenplay which was to be made. Character development, acting, plot, tone, structure, cinematography, production design, editing – basically everything needs work and feels like a rough first draft that should never see the light of day except as a canistered film on a shelf.If you pick away at all the physical imperfections, what comes down to it is The Leisure Class is a weak script. The pacing is terrible, unbearably slow and monotonous at the start, with bouts of fleeting and nonsensical mania. The core events of the film do create a substandard plot, but the dialogue and transitional occurrences to get us from one main plot point to the next are absent. Tonally, The Leisure Class is off-putting, jumpy and abrasive while being equally pointless.Yes, the actors could have brought more to their roles than what was there on paper, especially the feebly written females, most notably Bridget Regan who plays Fiona, but that minor fix would not have been enough to save the film. The two leads, played by Ed Weeks and Tom Bell, who are the heart of the film needed significant guidance based on their performances which a more experienced director would have noticed or edited around. Their banter, which seems excessively ad-libbed at times, needed to be reined in considerably so that the core structure of the film was retained. Listening to the dialogue, you long for the characters to get to the point, patiently waiting for the movie to start, which it never does.It seems as though Jason Mann was given every opportunity to succeed and utilize this film as a catalyst for his career and exemplification of his talents as a film maker. Based on The Leisure Class, Mann needs to go back to the basics of exciting and compelling story-telling before jumping into filming.Please check out our website for full reviews of all the recent releases.

I think that once a little time has separated THE LEISURE CLASS from the trumped up drama and cheap "reality" of Project Green Light, the film will be treated a little more fairly.Not that it's a good film. It mostly isn't. The whole first half is filled with unearned character motivations, plagued by pacing problems and tedious to the point of boredom, particularly anytime Tom Bell is talking. Bell's character is almost insufferable. An alcoholic so destructive to any social situation he's in that he must be mentally I'll. This could be seen as a pretty ambitious character for a social satire, except that it's all meaningless, which is most evident when he turns out to be a good guy in tune with his flaws for the tidy ending. So the bell character ends up neither being enjoyable nor consistent.Where the film does deserve some credit is in its thematic ambition, its mean spirit and... the hunting room. Now this is the scene everyone complains about the most, but it's the only part of the movie that actually worked on a substantive level for me. Once the tone of the film grows darker and the cast descends into the basement the film tilts towards the brilliant. This is in large part due to the amazing performance by Bruce Davison. To be fair, Davison is the only actor with a real character to work with in this film. A character that's been hiding his true ugly-resentful-misogynist nature all along. He is the leisure class. Corrupt, selfish and old- world to a fault. And as he reveals himself, Davison gives it his all, almost saving the movie for me. But don't worry, after that it's pretty much back to its sloppy ways as it rushes towards an unearned resolution.A side note, Bridget Regan turns in a strong performance that lives almost entirely in her subtle reactions, mostly because she doesn't have a lot to work with.

The central issue of how The Leisure Class might have been better has nothing to do with all the drama depicted on Project Greenlight. The central issue is the time structure of having the story take place on a single afternoon/night. Funny how none of the cooks stirring the broth brought up this problem. As it plays out, how does the audience know Charles/Thomas is a con man? If we were given some background from the months leading up to the wedding, it would give us time to figure it out. Instead we just see him reacting to his brother's arrival like he's a walking turd without knowing why. Like the storyline, the film seems compressed; scenes needed more time to breathe. For instance, it seems like mere seconds pass between when the characters show up uninvited to a party and when they go skinny-dipping in the pool. Which would make Leonard not the only thoughtless cad. Between the show and the film, ironies abound. Jason Mann is obsessed with shooting on film, even though the movie is destined for the small screen on HBO. Effie Jones is obsessed with diversity, and then the movie has none on screen. (One wonders if the black extra who was originally going to be depicted as a chauffeur would have preferred having a job that depicts him in a servant role, which Effie vetoed, to not having a job at all.) Mann is selected as the winning director, but was supposed to be filming a different script, which even he knew he wasn't right for. If I were one of the competing finalists, I'd be p.o.'d. As in, hey, why couldn't I have pitched MY script?