Customer Reviews

Convicts (Amazon.com Exclusive) [VHS]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I bought this movie because I'm a Duvall fan. He is, in my mind, the American Olivier. I watched the movie once and turned around and watched it again, immediately. The setting, the interactions between Duvall's character (Old Soll) and those around him is an amazing window into a past era. Convicts has elements of being almost a stage playj. Convicts is a gem and another feather in the cap of our likely greastest living American actor.

Robert Duvall is a direct descendent of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, according the IMDb.com movie database. After seeing this film, you may think Duvall's appearance is reincarnation at it's best.

One of my most favorite films. I wish the composer, Peter Rodgers Melnick had a CD or there was a soundtrack available. Wonderful scenery and music and "all too-true-to-life," especially for those of us that live in, or have moved to, the South. This is a "real moment in time." Life moves on, slowly, but "strangers we do not remain."

I saw this in the theaters and it just blew me away. Anything written by Horton Foote has incredible human intergrity (such as Tender Mercies or To Kill A Mockingbird, which he wrote the script for). This is not for folks with no attention span who require an explosion every few minutes. Just thoughtful, offbeat human drama. Simple and profound. Just a thing of beauty. He also wrote Habitation of Dragons and Alone, two fine pieces of work for those who appreciate rare human drama with intelligence and soul.

'Convicts' leaves the viewer with a lot to think about. This movie is recommended for those types who enjoy sitting quietly and watching scenes unfold as if watching through a window. Robert Duvall's character is quite interesting and his portrayal conveys very well the mood of uncertainty that the boy's character must surely feel very strongly throughout his time at the farm.

I think it takes a viewer that finds pleasure in quiet thinking to enjoy this film as it takes some reflection on the viewers part to determine just what the story was and what it means to them. There isn't a lot of action, but plenty to stimulate conversation afterwards. The is one of the few movies I would want to watch more than a couple of times.

Movies with a similar quiet feel and are also very good:
'Where The River's Flow North'- Rip Torn, Tantoo Cardinal, Michael J Fox and Treat Williams.
'The Ballad of The Sad Cafe'- Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Carradine.
'The Ballad of Little Jo'- Suzy Amis, Sam Robbards, Ian Mckellan
'Snow Falling on Cedars'- Ethan Hawke, Sam Shepard, Youki Kudoh, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

THIS WAS ONE OF THOSE LITTLE MOVIES THAT GOT LOST AND FORGOTTEN BECAUSE IT DIDNT HAVE SEX AND VIOLENCE IN STARRING ROLES.

A YOUNG BOY WHO JUST WANTS TO MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO BUY HIS FATHER A GRAVESTONE AND KEEP HIMSELF IN CHEWING TOBACCO GOES TO WORK ON AN EAST TEXAS SUGAR PLANTATION AT THE TURN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. HIS BOSS IS CROTCHETY AND BARELY LUCID ROBERT DUVALL. DUVALL EMPLOYS PRISON CONVICTS TO WORK ON THE PLACE AND RULES OVER THEM WITH A WEAK BUT IRON FIST.

ALL PARTS ARE WELL PLAYED AND HORTON FOOTES WRITING IS GREAT AS ALWAYS.

THE FILMS SHINING MOMENTS ARE WHENEVER DUVALL IS ON THE SCREEN AS THE PHILISOPHICAL, RAMBLING OLD GEYSER WHO'S MIND IS RAVAGED BY AGE. THESE SCENES WILL HAVE YOU LAUGHING AND WEEPING WITHIN SECONDS OF EACH OTHER.

DUVALL IS PROBABLY THE MOST GIFTED ACTOR WORKING TODAY. HE BRINGS 'REALNESS' TO HIS CHARACTERS THAT FEW OTHER 'PLAYERS' CAN MANAGE.

'CONVICTS' IS ONE OF THOSE LITTLE PIECES OF QUALITY FLIM MAKING THAT OCCASIONALLY MAKES ITS WAY THROUGH THE LIBERAL PERVERSNESS THAT SEEMS TO INFLUENCE MOST OF WHAT MAKES IT TO THE SCREEN THESE DAYS.

ITS A GREAT LITTLE FILM.

Very slow drama is rewarding at the end. Robert Duvall is superb, and Lukas Haas and James Earl Jones complement his greatly. Sometimes VERY slow going though, with one wishing more of a soundtrack had been put in.

Robert Duvall, who was 58 when this film was made in 1990, plays a King Lear-like old tyrant in his 80s, more than half-demented, half-drunk, and fully armed. Part of Horton Foote's cycle of nine plays featuring a character, Horace, much like his own father, "Convicts" is of a different temper from his more bittersweet scripts ("Tender Mercies," "The Trip to Bountiful"). Here the violence and brutality of the Old South is portrayed in a remote rural setting along the Texas Gulf coast on a convict farm, where the workers are no better than slaves, and though it is 1902, the Civil War seems still in the recent past.

Duvall is Soll, the owner, raving, confused, forgetful, paranoid. His scenes with his employees, Ben (James Earl Jones), 13-year old Horace (Lukas Haas), Martha (Starletta Depois), and a trustie Jackson (Mel Winkler) are rambling, circuitous and full of repetitions and questions with "I don't know" answers. It's a Faulkner story retold by Samuel Beckett. While there is much talk of death, dying, and killing, there are also moments of comic absurdity. Viewers eager for plot and action will be impatient with the theatricality of the dialogue and the scenes, but that's not what the film is about. They are all convicts, trapped in a dying world and going nowhere. Only the young Horace, with his education, his intelligence and humanity, and his knowledge of a modern world elsewhere will escape.

This is one of those movies that had about 30 minutes worth of script, and they stretched it into 90 by covering the same ground over and over. The performances are good. I'm a fan of Duvall and Jones, but this film was a waste of their talents.

If you are a Robert Duvall fan, you will like this movie. It is alright, not the greatest movie that he's been in.

Horton Foote story of young boy (Lucas Haas) who comes of age at a plantaion where owner Robert DuVall (in an awsome performance) keeps it running using convicts for labor. Heavy drama, is very slow, but has to be to tell what it does. Fine support from James Earl Jones. Director Peter Masterson is at his best.