Product Details

• Actors: Erika Alexander, David Alan Basche, Enrico Colantoni, David Duchovny, David Fincher
• Format: NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005JKXA

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Director Steven Soderbergh brings a playful spirit and a touch of genius to this oddly gentle Hollywood exposé. Full Frontal follows the lives of several people connected by varying degrees to the production of Rendez Vous, the film within the film that itself contains a film within a film. This layering and teasing of movie-industry standbys happens throughout: L.A. Law star Blair Underwood plays an actor who plays an actor who is a TV star who is making the jump to the big screen, major stars pop up as bit players playing themselves, and even the opening credits are a sly, dead-on parody of opening credits. The actors are clearly having a terrific time skewering movie insiders and, like any members of a family, are allowed to be both more affectionate and more vicious to each other than outsiders. Standouts in a uniformly marvelous ensemble cast include David Hyde Pierce as one of the screenwriters, and Nicky Katt as an actor doing a truly wretched Hitler. Full Frontal is beautifully written, beautifully performed, and brilliantly realized. --Ali Davis

From The New Yorker

Steven Soderbergh and the screenwriter Coleman Hough have attempted a neo-Godardian deconstruction of cinematic reality, but the movie turns deconstruction into hash. Actors play actors who are making a movie within the movie, but half the time we can't tell whether we're in the inner or outer movie or why we should care. There are a few intense moments in which Julia Roberts, playing a magazine reporter, flirts with Blair Underwood, who plays a handsome black TV actor hoping to get his big break, but the scenes don't go anywhere. Neither does Catherine Keener's smoldering rage as a personnel director who, for some reason, throws a plastic globe at her company's employees and asks them to name the countries in Africa. The movie is the sort of whimsical and arbitrary mess that gives experimentation a bad name. With David Duchovny (very briefly), Mary McCormack, and David Hyde Pierce. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars something creative, new, insightful, August 3, 2002

By 

Chad (LOS EEUU) - See all my reviews

So far, I have only read negative reviews, but after viewing the film, I have only positive words for it. I believe that many will not like it b/c it does not feed them the same mindless pap that studios are offering this summer, i.e. Austin Powers, XXX, and Mr. Deeds. This film, thus, is not for everyone. What it has to say about reality is very important, and many will not like its postmodern aura b/c it so closely resembles our lives, and it is true. The film was insightful, funny, and moving to the point that it made me feel uncomfortable about my presuppositions, my philosophy, and the way I live my life. And if 1hr45 of videotape can do that, then Full Frontal is worthy of 5 stars.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Noble Failure, August 12, 2002

By 

MICHAEL ACUNA (Southern California United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Steven Soderbergh's "Full Frontal" attempts to confront the real from the imaginary, the true from the false. The movie is billed, as the true successor to "Sex, Lies and Videotape" but is it really?
Soderbergh has done some amazing things since SLV: "Traffic," "Erin Brockavich," "Out of Sight" and "The Limey." His mastery of the screen cannot be denied but unfortunately "Full Frontal" comes off only as weak and insipid...not as a companion piece to the milestone achievement that was "SLV."

"Full Frontal" is a story about what it is to deal with and in the Hollywood of the year 2002. There is a film being made starring Julia Roberts and Blair Underwood and then there is purportedly the back-story starring a who's who of Hollywood...even a cameo by Brad Pitt.
The most interesting things about this film have to do with the physical production: the very grainy texture of the film, the story-within-a-story-within-a-story, the nouvelle vague-ish filming on the run quality. But Soderbergh pays so much attention to the physical production and the problems inherent therein that he fails to notice that the basic plot of the film is lacking in dramatic weight and therefore even the best actors have little of which to take a hold.
Chalk "Full Frontal" as a failure per se but a noble failure coming from one of our truly great contemporary directors.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars ER, WHAT WAS THAT AGAIN?, October 10, 2003

By 

Shashank Tripathi (Gadabout) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Full Frontal (DVD)

From a quiet little picture called "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" to big punches like "Erin Brockovich" and "Traffic", Steve Soderbergh has charted quite a route. He even made possibly one of the most enjoyable big-name movies of 2001, Ocean's Eleven.

Full Frontal was where he probably got his kicks doing something offbeat. Not many directors can, or would want to, knock off a quick, small-budget movie between major projects. But perhaps that's what makes Steven Soderbergh such an intriguing director.

To put it simply, Full Frontal confused me. Its look at Los Angeles movie-industry culture has a way of telescoping further and further outwards. Using the visual technique for which he won the Oscar for Best Director on Traffic (he again operates as his own director of photography on this movie under the alias of Peter Andrews), he separates the different storylines and worlds with different visual looks. Much of the film is shot on digital video, giving it a harsh, washed-out look. The movie-within-the-movie is on standard 35mm. And there are two move levels even beyond that, one featuring David Fincher and Brad Pitt.

I had trouble gaining full acceptance for Full Frontal. It covers its emotional resonance with layer upon layer of stylization and apathy. He holds the characters at arms length, never really showing any sympathy for their situations. Part of this is his visual style, which, while helpful in understanding the way the movie operates, tends to lend more of a documentary feel to the proceedings. Its wild tonal shifts can throw the viewer off ..., and Catherine Keener's behavior through the first two acts make it difficult to connect with her breakdown in the third.

Perhaps die-hard film geeks will rave about Full Frontal for its cleverness and its "offbeat"ness. But that cleverness comes at the expense of the emotion that lies at the heart of this story.

All style and no substance, which is probably what Soderbergh was going for. And for that, it works. But it's difficult to care.