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Critics Consensus: Matt Dillon's performance is the highlight of this somewhat slow but fascinating portrayal of Charles Bukowski's alter-ego.
Critic Consensus: Matt Dillon's performance is the highlight of this somewhat slow but fascinating portrayal of Charles Bukowski's alter-ego.
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All Critics (117) | Top Critics (35) | Fresh (89) | Rotten (28) | DVD (6)
The transplant didn't take in Barfly, and it works no better here in Factotum. In each case, the baying of the boozehounds just seems repetitious and banal -- the noise endures but the joy is gone.
Quite dull, truth be told. As good as Dillon and Taylor are in their roles, making us side with them even as we despise them, there's not a whole lot that happens in a life ruled by the bottle, the butt and the shag.
This is one of the best movies of the year, and one of the two or three best performances.
Factotum is right up there with Barfly as a distillation of Bukowskian badinage, despite the current film's sketchier provenance.
Dillon is better now that he's settled into sturdy middle age. He makes more sense; I never got him as a Tiger Beat centerfold.
I just didn't think the comic touches were very subtle and very funny and the other stuff we've just seen before.
The fact that Chinaski can be ably transplanted from the '40s to the early 21st century, and from LA to MN, speaks to his endurance as American literature's preeminent antihero, and Dillon seems to have a firm grip on this notion.
A slouching portrait of Bukowski that's likeable, if superficial.
Factotum is an existentialist indie film about the loneliness of the human condition, which is normally the cinematic equivalent of having a hole drilled in your head.
An understated and atmospheric portrait of the artist as a young booze-hound built around a quiet but magnetic performance by Matt Dillon.
Minimalism-a-thon, numb from the very start
Dillon is an utterly excellent actor without ego.
I miss the whole point of this movie, and rather then watch it a second time, I rather have pins stuck in my eyeballs, The best part of the movie was the line about the wine nats on the unemployment office. Could Matt Dilon fall any lower. 1 star
Super Reviewer
Deadbeat wannabe writer Henry Chinaski drifts from dead end job to dead end job while trying to hone his craft and find his next drink. Based on a hotch-potch of the works of cult literary figure Charles Bukowski, Factotum is a fair cinematic representation of his work; you get a few chuckles over his reckless abandon in the face of polite society and imagine how liberating it would be to be able to just not give a shit. But at the end of the day, most people who don't give a shit aren't charming, charismatic rebels; they're just assholes. For this reason, Factotum seemed to me to be just a collection of scenes of an asshole getting drunk and losing jobs, and that's it. I didn't warm to him, he didn't show me any insights into the modern world. He was just a self-involved, self-important bore who occasionally quoted Bukowski to justify his own sorry existence, which pretty much sums up this film. If it's comedy drunks you want, Withnail & I, Fear And Loathing, Leaving Las Vegas and Trees Lounge are all far, far better than this self indulgent cinewank.
At no point should you mistake this movie for being good. It is, in fact, a bad movie. It has a ton of inconsistencies and you rarely see 'Chinaski' honing his writing craft. That said, it has a few amusing moments, some decent acting, and it features a topless Marissa Tomei, which allows it to reclaim an additional star.
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