Fresh and Exciting

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

My summary rewrites the famous U2 song from their "War" album because it's appropriate to describe the mood of this movie. In a way, it's a peaceful, almost happy last moments between a boy and his grandfather.Compared to my recent watching of the Swedish "Svinalängorna", it's almost a day and night for a same situation. Here, there isn't tension, cry or shouts. Maybe this difference comes that Al is really warmly with his grandson unlike Noomi was distant and cold with her mother. It may not be the best part of Al but so far, it's the one in which he is almost totally disabled as he doesn't move: he can rely only with his hands and his eyes and in a look similar to the old Godfather at the end of Part III, he manages to pass emotion. The good surprise of the movie is that it has a lot more to offer: it's also a sort of "stand by me" in the big depression as the young boy learns life lessons from unexpected and unusual moments: It's subtle and intelligent as the boy's quest for 25 cents mirrors the demands of the jobless. It has also a clear, colorful vision of the 30s that finally looks like the 50s except for the TV and the music. Its final message about enjoying life whatever happens is hopeful at least. Personally, it parallels also my life as I can also pinpoint my grandparents death with events as grandpa died on Christmas day and grandma died on my nephews birthday. Next, the movie closes as the boy's family urges him kindly to go away from the dead body of his grandfather in a way to protect him. Mine, precisely my mother, slapped me because i didn't want to see the dead body of my grandfather to protect me!

This movie was passably interesting but I found the readers' comments even more interesting. Obviously both readers, writer, director, et al. are of today's generation of takers who don't have the least idea about what life was life in those terrible days. The central figure, a 12 year old boy who wants to go to the movies, is repeatedly seen trying to cadge a quarter from his dying grandfather.Out of compassion, a grocer who is overextended giving credit to his impoverished neighbors and forgives their small thefts, gives the kid a nickel for a job the kid never does. A compassionate doctor, who himself is nearly as bad off financially as his patients, gives the kid a dime for a job the kid never does. Finally the kid badgers his mother into giving him her last dime for attending to his grandfather's dying wish. This the kid does, in a really great scene. But he gets to the theater too late for the twenty five cents early admission price. Now the price is fifty cents, a seemingly hopeless sum.This was an absurd price for a movie ticket in those days. I recall ten or fifteen cents for a kid and two bits for adults. But fifty cents then was a good pay for a day's hard work by a man. As Steinbeck wrote of those days regarding a California farmer's view of fair wages: "A red is any son of a bitch who wants five cents an hour when I'm paying four." I got forty cents per month per customer for getting up at 4:00 am delivering newspapers door to door, and had to pay the company for the papers whether the customer paid me or not.Back to the movie -- Then the grandfather dies and, miraculously, the kid finds a quarter in the dirt nearby. And off he goes to the theater, splurging the whole fifty cents. Not a penny's worth of character development here, although the opportunity to do so was palpable. What a message to send the spoiled brats of today who seem to think they have a God-given right to live off of their parents and grandparents until the old folks die. When that happens we're going to have a hell of a depression. Which we need like a hole in the head. Today homeless people are living in parks and riverside camps and in alleyways behind restaurant dumpsters in the same terrible conditions and nearly the numbers we had during the depression era. The only difference is the modern stainless steel shopping carts they commandeer to move their possessions. But nobody seems to bother counting them, much less doing anything about their plight. We just don't want to see them and so, miraculously, they aren't there. This play could have been redeemed if the kid had foregone his utterly selfish obsession to go to the movie, and had paid the doctor and the grocer the unearned 15 cents they had given him, and had given his mother back her dime plus the two bits he "inherited" from his grandfather. Or would that have been a politically incorrect message to send to the children of today? Twelve year is not by any means too young for a child to be aware of the economic burdens parents have today, and certainly wasn't the case back in the thirties. I vividly remember when I was about 12 and spent a summer on my grandfather's ranch -- which he had lost long before to the mortgage holder who let him and grandma live there until he died on the land he and his parents had owned for nearly a century. He taught me how to play poker, so well in fact that by the time my vacation was over, I had a pretty fair stack of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters which I kept stacked on the kitchen table with the sugar bowl and salt and pepper shakers.I really felt bad about taking the money -- although God knows the old man had lost his ranch in large part because of his gambling and hell-raising youth -- and so when my folks picked me up I "forgot" my small hoard of possibly three-four dollars, which was big money to me too. Later I got a letter from my grandmother noting my gesture, but letting me know that my grandfather was deeply hurt because a 12 year old kid had felt sorry for him.My grandfather taught me to play a pretty good game of poker too, which I put to good use in the Army and later when I had to play "poker" with the insurance companies for much higher stakes. Like the man used to sing, "You've got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em."Anyhow, TWO BITS was a big disappointment to me for these reasons. Obviously, I'm not at all happy with the state of affairs in our society these days. If you want more lectures along these lines, see our website (www.networkcentralca.net) based on the 1976 blockbuster movie NETWORK where Paddy Chayefski -- also a Depression era child -- famously satirized and forecast the sorry state of affairs of our news media and economy. Some day a more vital culture, whether Chinese or Mexican or Muslim, is going to eat us alive, and if you are around then and don't know why, remember TWO BITS.Lew Warden

This movie is beautifully done. It is one of my favorites. It is a glimpse at another time. It is a movie about values. The whole movie is about one big day in the life of a boy growing up in the depression in Philadelphia and the wisdom his grandfather passes on. It is a touching and rewarding movie. The hopelessness of the depression comes out effectively in the movie. Gennaro and Tullio are just ordinary kids that aren't perfect. There is an interesting interplay between a child's honest selfishness and the relationship between wanting and needing. Pacino: "Your heart wants, your belly needs." Wanting is good because it requires hope. Many touching lines between Pacino (grandfather) and Barone (Gennaro). There is some humor also. Favorite line: Gennaro- "There's no milk!" See it and find out why I liked that line!

As an Al Pacino fan I thought I'd seen everything he's done. I'd never heard of Two Bits until I saw it today. I found it to be a well-done, heartwarming, bittersweet movie that anyone with a heart should enjoy. This movie proves once again that sometimes the lesser-known, "smaller" movies are truly the best ones.