Product Details

• Actors: Nick Nolte
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Turner Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: June 14, 2005
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000GAKO64
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #496,392 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Topnotch casting fails to conceal a pointlessly tortuous and essentially empty Sam Shepard conceit; it's basically a rehash of themes from better Shepard plays about guilty secrets buried in the past. In this 1999 movie, Jeff Bridges plays Lyle, a slick Kentucky horse breeder about to make a career-topping sale of a prospective Derby winner (the title character, as it were). Lyle's youthful crony, Vinnie (Nick Nolte at his scuzziest), phones in from Rancho Cucamonga, California, with a blackmail threat--he'll reveal their shared secret unless Lyle helps him sort out his goofy love life. Lyle drops everything and heads west; Vinnie promptly steals Lyle's car, and essentially his identity, and drives east. Lyle's well-oiled existence starts coming apart; Vinnie meanwhile cleans up his act and struts his stuff among the racing set. Oh, the irony of it all.

In his filmmaking debut, British theater director Matthew Warchus strains to "cinematize" the play. This mostly means relentless crosscutting, with not only Lyle's and Vinnie's journeys being overlapped, but also fragmentary flashbacks in which the teenage Lyle, Vinnie, and Lyle's haunted wife (Sharon Stone) are played by Liam Waite, Shawn Hatosy, and Kimberly Williams. Only Albert Finney, as a racing official implicated in their old scam, appears in both time frames--with unintentionally grotesque results.

The complicated editing can't conceal that there's nothing complex, or compelling, about the characters' sins. Stone doesn't show up till the third act (a ploy that worked better onstage), and is outshone by the always-intriguing Catherine Keener playing the sweet-natured dim bulb who has lately won Vinnie's heart. Back-to-back Oscar winner John Toll photographed. --Richard T. Jameson

From The New Yorker

For his first movie, the young British director Matthew Warchus has delivered an elusive and distinctly unthrilling thriller, based on a Sam Shepard play. Nick Nolte is a dishevelled bum named Vinnie; Jeff Bridges is Carter-horse breeder, smooth operator, and, once upon a time, Vinnie's best friend. A crime from their past resurfaces, and, under the pressure of its revelation, the two of them gradually trade places. It all feels too schematic for its own good, and Warchus is unable to shake the staginess out of the dialogue. Albert Finney in particular, as the fall guy for the half-forgotten crime, enjoys his own brusque seediness too much. This is a man's world, but what you remember are the women at its margins; there are fine performances from Catherine Keener as Vinnie's timid friend, and from Sharon Stone as Carter's neglected wife. The film has a dreamy, resigned air, caught between brightness and deep shadow, and these two look more at home in it than anyone else. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Strange, May 31, 2003

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Simpatico (DVD)

Summary:
Vincent "Vinny" T. Webb (Nick Nolte; Young Vinnie Webb - Shawn Hatosy) is an alcoholic with a guilty conscience. Years ago he and his best friend, Lyle Carter (Jeff Bridges; Young Lyle Carter - Liam Waite), rigged some horse races with the help of Lyle's now wife, Rosie (Sharon Stone; Young Rosie - Kimberly Williams (I)). But rigging the races isn't what the guilty conscience is from. The racing commissioner (Albert Finney) caught on to what they were doing. So the three friends set him up; Rosie had sex with him while Vinny took pictures. They then used the pictures to get him to keep quiet while they won their final race. After the last race, Rosie took off with Lyle, even though Vinny wanted to marry her.

Vinny has kept the pictures for roughly 20 years as a means of controlling Lyle. Lyle went on to make something of himself, becoming quite wealthy and continuing to participate in horse racing. He even lives in Kentucky now, near the location of the Kentucky Derby. He married Rosie who has developed a love for horses, especially the one the story is named after - Simpatico. Whenever Vinny needs anything, he calls up Lyle and, because Vinny still has the evidence from their crime so many years ago, Lyle has to concede to whatever Vinny wants.

Well, that's all just the backstory, which takes the whole movie to figure out. The movie actually begins when (this is my interpretation) Vinny can't take the guilt anymore and decides to play his hand by giving the pictures to someone (he tries to give them to the racing commissioner to clear his name and to Rosie, but both refuse). To clear the way for him to get them to Rosie he tricks Lyle to fly out to California saying he is in trouble. He isn't really but ends up stealing Lyle's wallet, return flight pass, and cash and heading to Kentucky to try to get rid of the pictures. Once Lyle realizes what has happened he tries to send Vinny's current love interest, Cecilia (Catherine Keener), after him, but the realization of the havoc Vinny is likely to cause gets to him (again, my interpretation) and Lyle and Vinny temporarily switch roles with Vinny becoming the business man and Lyle the drunk. Now everyone involved has to come to terms with the past and the future that has resulted from it.

My Comments:
I'd like to meet Nick Nolte one day, perhaps follow him around and see what he is really like. Has he ever played a role where he was sober the whole time? I mean, the guy just seems to get typecast into the role of a drunk in every move he is in. Anyway, the acting in this movie is okay. So, too, is the cinematography. Nick Nolte and Jeff Bridges were pretty good, and so were all of the young counterparts and the racing commissioner. However, I didn't like the two women leads, - Sharon Stone and Catherine Keener. I think Catherine Keener was more convincing than Sharon Stone, but perhaps the reason I didn't like either of them that much wasn't so because there acting was so poor (I don't really think it was all that great), but because they were trying to play characters that just weren't working. Catherine was trying play a naive woman from California and Sharon was playing an embittered wife who was still fixated on a trick from 25-30 years ago.

This leads to the biggest problem I saw with the movie - the story. I guess it's kind of credible, but a major stretch. I wouldn't really know if people do these kinds of things; I've never done anything like it. But the responses of the main characters to the crime were, I don't know, not fitting. I guess theoretically it's possible that Vinny would take to drinking and not make anything of his life, same too for Rosie. But I doubt it. After 30 years or so you'd think people would get over it. Also, Lyle's response to Vinny heading to Kentucky made no sense either. I guess he was thinking that he was going to lose everything, but instead of trying to go to Kentucky to stop him, he gets sloshed and tries to hide from the world. It just didn't make any sense. Overall, the movie is kind of interesting just because all of the characters are screwed up, but the unconvincing storyline kind of ruins the movie.

One final thing - what's the big deal with the Kentucky Derby? I live less than 100 miles from where it takes place and everyone I talk to (definitely a biased sample, I recognize that) seems to think that it's kind of silly. Why all the mystique about it in the movie? I've never been and have no intention of going.

Anyway, this is one that you could miss and not feel bad about having done so. It definitely didn't leave a lasting impression on me and unless someone asks me about it, I highly doubt I'll be talking about it again.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of time, September 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Simpatico [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Although both Bridges and Nolte do great with their roles the story itself is confusing because they are constantly flashing back to the past without much detail. My advice don't waste your time or money on this film.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars good actors bad movie, August 19, 2002

By 

simon gurney (london United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Simpatico (DVD)

The main problem here seems to be that the central event in the story, the scam , just isnt interesting, its certainly hard to beleive in the characters and their interrelationship based on this event, from there it just falls apart.
Basically boring and very missable.