Product Details

• Actors: Parker Posey, Miho Nikaido, Nicholas Hope, Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak
• Directors: Hal Hartley
• Producers: Henry Fool (UK)
• Format: Import, PAL
• Region: Region 2 (Read more about DVD formats.)
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Artificial Eye
• Run Time: 137 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002VR01EK

Editorial Reviews

United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Scene Access, Short Film, SYNOPSIS: Socially inept garbage man Simon is befriended by Henry Fool, a witty roguish, but talent-less novelist. Henry opens a magical world of literature to Simon who turns his hand to writing the 'great American poem'. As Simon begins his controversial ascent to the dizzying heights of Nobel Prize winning poet, Henry sinks to a life of drinking in low-life bars. The two friends fall out and lose touch until Henry's criminal past catches up with him and he needs Simon's help to flee the country. SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Cannes Film Festival, ...Henry Fool (UK)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comic Epic with Heart, Soul and Bruises, August 5, 2004

By 

G P Padillo "paolo" (Portland, ME United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Henry Fool (DVD)

Hartley's Masterpiece: An epic, dark comedy with heart and soul and bruises.

If Hal Hartley were never to make another film, he could easily go down as having created a genuine American Masterpiece with "Henry Fool." Hartley takes this material and stamps it with heart and soul and distance. It's like staring at a palette of beautiful colors - then stepping back to realize it's a bruise. Henry is never less than this astonishing.

As Henry,Thomas Jay Ryan gives what is easily the best film debut I've seen in many years. None of the wimpy whispery-voiced drivel that passes for acting these days (from even some of our best screen actors) his performance practically pops off of the screen like a fart at a funeral. The rest of the cast - James Urbaniak, Parker Posey, Maria Porter, Kevin Corrigan, et al. - are on the same inspired level, but it's obvious why the film is named after Henry. I cannot wait to see this man in more.

Obviously allegorical, "Henry Fool" fairly teems with its laundry list of symbolism both quaint and profound, easy and impossible. I found my cheeks hurting from the smile stretching across my face for much of the film. Other moments had my eyes welling with tears at the beauty - and pain - these oh, so deceptively simple lives toil through.

This is not, obviously, a film for all audiences, there is something of the fairy tale here and while suspension of disbelief is required, it is also its own reward. Actually the characters, though larger than life, are so evenly and wondrously drawn as to become recognizable to all of us as ourselves or others in our own lives. Here we weigh out the seemingly unfair advantages we perceive "others" has having, the pronouncements of self-worth and desire for acceptance and understanding.

Hartley's dialogue is equal to the visual aspects of his film: almost stagey (in the good sense), but with a direct honesty that many, unfortunately, will find offputting. His cast delivers these perfectly placed pronouncements with all the gravitas demanded of the situation - and sound natural doing so. It's a beautiful film to listen to.

Aside from the brilliant storytelling, "Henry" is also beautiful to look at. Hartley's cameramen lens a Queenscape most unusual - one never quite feels he knows where it's taking place, despite obvious "Queens" clues. Every frame - from Henry's powerfully bizarre arrival to the last triumphant (and gloriously ambiguous) cell is a pleasure, a joy to watch.

At its conclusion all I could say was "this was the best movie I've ever seen." Upon reflection, I realize it probably isn't, but at that moment (and each ensuing viewing) I recapture that same, precise feeling. That's what I want in a movie and Henry delivers every time.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Film is Briiliant, DVD an Abortion, January 23, 2007

By 

Eric M. Van (Watertown, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Henry Fool (DVD)

Warning: this is not a widescreen presentation of the original film, which was in 1.66:1 aspect ratio. IT IS A MATTED (VERTICALLY TRIMMED) VERSION OF THE PAN-AND-SCAN VHS VERSION, WHICH MEANS IT'S 60% OF THE ORIGINAL IMAGE. (The reported 1.78:1 aspect ratio on the DVD box is correct, even the claim that it's anamorphic widescreen is correct: it's just that the image you're seeing was generated by taking the "reformatted for your TV" VHS version, which chopped off the sides of the original theatrical image, and *further chopping* it to fit the widescreen format by eliminating the top and bottom of the VHS image. This is a common practice for widescreen movie presentations on HDTV, but it's always inexcusable). It's unwatchable even if you only know the movie from the VHS pan-and-scan version (which was 80% of the film). And the transfer is poor: it looks worse on my TV than the VHS tape I rented a few years ago.

What an incredible letdown, because the film is sheer genius.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Overlooked Masterpiece, August 19, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Henry Fool [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It's a shame that "Henry Fool" remains relatively overlooked and underrated. In large part because it's such a departure from his earlier films, Hal Hartley purists couldn't stomach the epic scale and thematic shift of the film, and audiences who would likely appreciate the movie never even saw it. In my opinion though, Henry Fool is a true masterpiece of American cinema and one of the best films of the 1990s. If you look at films like "Trust", "Simple Men" and "Amateur" as early, developmental works in Hal Hartley's maturation as a filmmaker, and then see "Flirt" as his attempt to identify himself more as a "director" than a "writer", then "Henry Fool" is the fruit of that labor - not only is it precisely, minimalistically and efficiently directed, but it's far and away his best writing yet. His favorite themes are expanded and blown up within a mythic frame, and his casting here of stage actors (especially the hefty presence of Thomas Jay Ryan) separates the film from Hartley's earlier work. However, it retains the philosophical tone, the inner musings of character, and the precision of their actions. This time, however, Hartley accomplishes this by expanding the frame with which he grapples with friendship, family, ambition, achievement and betrayal, and ends up with a shattering parable about who we choose to be in our lives. The film is about greatness, and thanks to Hartley's fearlessness in envisioning conceptions of greatness, it is, itself, great.