Such a frustrating disappointment

Simply Perfect

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

I've seen some of PTA's films recently like There Will Be Blood, Magnolia and Boogie Nights. And it's only natural that I really wanted to see Inherent Vice, given that it's a PTA film and has, one of my favourites, Joaquin Phoenix as the lead. The plot summary seemed a bit okayish. But so are the summaries of other Anderson's films. So I had some kind of hope despite the low rating it had.I start the movie, 20 minutes in and I totally lost track of what the hell was happening. For a moment, I thought "Okay maybe I just had a good lunch and I wanna sleep". I sleep, then I watch the movie from the beginning. NO CHANGE. The movie becomes painfully self indulgent as it progresses with some laughs here and there. I swear no viewer, without reading the novel, could tell the complete plot. And no, this isn't The Matrix or Interstellar or Donnie Darko, where the necessity for a complex plot is mandatory.I literally had to read the synopsis every 5 minutes to understand what's going. I know that I'm not that dumb, and I do like art films (Tree of Life, The Fountain). But this is not art. Sadly from a great director. Acting is just fine. Phoenix isn't even interested or that's his character perhaps, I don't know, I really didn't care to be honest. Josh Brolin and Owen Wilson just want to get a break from their usual brand of films.Overall, inherent vice is an incoherent mess and please don't hesitate to say this films sucks just because its from Paul Thomas Anderson. Stay away or watch other genuinely great PTA films.

I loved this film. A lot of people don't like this film because the plot is very confusing and hard to follow but the whole message of the film is that sometimes life doesn't wrap things up in a nice little bow and sometimes everything doesn't come together in the end. I've seen this film a few times now and I like it more everytime I see it. The first time I didn't really like it because I was trying to keep up and get my head around the plot but after I became enlightened to the theme, then I was just able to sit back and experience the journey. It is a great character study. Joaquín pheonix is fantastic and his character is great, all the characters and performances in this film are great and fun, Josh Brolin works really well and had great chemistry with Pheonix, and Martin Short was hilarious when he came into the film he was amazing. There were so many great moments and great lines scattered about like when he visits the golden fang institute. The dialogue on the whole is inconsistent as a lot of it is exposition for the plot but when it isn't that it was fantastic. This is one of the most enjoyable films because you don't need to worry about understanding the plot because you're not supposed to understand it and instead just sit back and relax. The directing is great as always from PTA, the film is really well made. My only criticisms are the film gets weaker in the last 20 mins or so and probably should've ended earlier and that some of the dialogue is just exposition. However I love this film on the whole, I love the soundtrack and the unsatisfying ending reflects the whole film, it reflects the character and how really he gets nothing done in the whole film. And it also reflects life, and how in life often things don't have satisfying endings.

Inherent Vice is an all time low for writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson. A man with incredible talent and whom has made several great films throughout his career. Inherent Vice however is a sloppy mess of a film with a completely incoherent story that is confusing and convoluted throughout. Not to mention its totally uneventful. Nothing of importance ever really happens in this film and plenty goes unresolved. There are no well developed or interesting characters in the entire story, not even our main character "Doc" played by the incredible Joaquin Phoenix. He and the whole supporting cast do the best they can with what they are given, but that sadly is not much at all.It really doesn't feel like much effort is put into the production. Its almost as if you can tell the people involved were not feeling passionate about this project at all and who can blame them? Its really crap.At least with PTA's last film The Master it was very artistic which made up for its lack of a story. Here there isn't any artistic value at all. Its just 2 and a half hours of pointless meandering with undeveloped/uninteresting characters. There is hardly anything redeeming about this.

This movie is a convoluted mess, I can't even explain what the story line is. Phoenix is in every scene, never sitting up normally, always lying down, or sprawled on the floor after a pummeling, and constantly smoking weed, and there's the annoying voice over. If you like David Lynch movies then this movie is for you. Don't try to make sense of it, just marvel that someone would waste their time trying to adapt it from a book that is ranked No. 32,833 on Amazon. It rambles on so much that you will completely forget what the main plot is supposed to be. Case in point: There are 110 cast members listed in the credits, I defy anyone to recall what was said by any one of them, and more importantly how they contributed to the plot. The budget was $20 million, small in comparison to the typical Hollywood film and the opening weekend was an abysmal $328,000, word of mouth certainly worked in this case. Save yourself the cost of renting it and just have someone you really don't care for explain the plot to you, in depth, so you can have another reason to dislike that person even more.