Very well executed

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

This is by far the most wired,bizarre and strange movie I have ever seen, during the movie I convinced that it was some sort of dream sequence and the protagonist will wake up at some point and unlike the most of the viewers I haven't read the novel it is based on,so to me whole movie seemed illogical,like a dream where some bits and pieces make some sense but otherwise its just jumbled and random, I even thought that it might turn out to be a psychological thriller and towards the end I'll see the main character sitting in a mental asylum,the film would've made much more sense then,at least to me, I watched the movie because of Anthony Hopkins as I am a big fan of his but I was sad to see him only towards the end of the movie and that too only for 5-6 minutes,to me this whole movie seemed metaphorical,as if its meant to show the confusion one goes through after getting entangled with legal matters or the corruption which runs rampant in the bureaucracy,anyways before watching the movie I thought that Anthony Hopkins must have been playing the role of an Advocate who is defending a man who has been charged with a crime but he have not been told what his crime is and,boy was i wrong.

Terrific version of this story - moves more smoothly and lacks some of the dream like Brectian look of Welles version. Still, McLaughlin is excellent as a confident, terrified and confused man who's life is inexplicably changed when he his charged in an unknown place, for an unknown crime. Hopkins and Robards as the Priest and legal counsel are in excellent form. Set during the time period when Kafka was alive to give the film a sense of place, I strongly recommend this version of the story for someone who wants a little more scenery and a sense that Josef lives somewhere instead of just in some strange version of a modern town.

Pinter's Kafka; 'The Trial'. Brilliant film, I think. Lovely, knowing Prague, to see it as the backdrop. Why bother with derivative stuff like 'Waiting for Godot', a pathetic attempt to infuse the tragedy with facile humour. Hopkins is perfectly cast, as is the castle at Prague. Kafka sees the world, the world of power and corruption so clearly, but fails to see the redemption Epicurus and Ecclesiastes did.Perfect atmosphere, cinematography and acting. The film is a delight.To short to be properly Kafkaesque, but who would watch it if it were long enough? It avoids the problems of too literary a take that the film of Finnegan's Wake makes.We want to shout, almost all the way through, not; 'Look behind you!', but 'What's the Charge?'This is not a film for the young. It lacks the obvious ennui that a teenager would seek, and find, from the book. It, rather, I think, shows an adult understanding of our helplessness.We can love the void, or hate it, but we can't deny that it is there. If we can, unlike the Kafka's anti-hero, refuse to take it all at face value, or, more importantly, at the apparently deep, skull-level value the bureaucrats would wish us to believe are real, then we can live.I see Kafka as, despite himself, deeply life-affirming. The Castle, Trail, or Plague we see is only an illusion. As the gatekeeper says, the door is open and is only there, specially, for us, or for us to ignore.I'm delighted to have ignored the doors, the gatekeepers and the controllers that would have had me imprisoned in my own mind. It's good and healthy to see them here for what substantial obstacles the can be if you don't ignore them.

Beautiful film, subtle exploration of Kafka's masterpiece nuances, slices of novel's atmosphere but only an ordinary adaptation.In fact, a film about one of Franz Kafka's texts are an Utopian gesture. The sense of pages, the shadows of characters, the angst, fear or illusions, the magnificent style of one of best writers are crushed by vision of any director or art of actor. And the images are pieces of cold beauty without soul or honesty.For "The Trial" adaptation is always present a trap: the image of Joseph K. as avatar of Kafka. Franz Kafka is only a Kakania's citizen, civil servant in a large empire, with small ambitions and desires, toy of his doubts and hesitations, dreads and lures.Kyle MacLachlan is a correct interpret of character but, the fundamental error is the ambition to be a perfect Joseph K.. So, his acting is barren and empty.Alfred Molina as Titorelli is charming but the interpretation of character is exercise of one type incarnation, the same in many nuances. Same situation for great Jason Robards.The important virtue of film is the presence of Anthony Hopkins and the colors, shadows, illusions and accents gives to parable. It is not example of brilliant art but the science of words sense description. The words- medusa, words- ash, words- sand, words- velvet. In this small text is the crux of novel and film.A splendid film, a acceptable adaptation.