47 out of 50 people found the following review helpful:

Intelligent film

A Customer from Wembley, England, 14th March, 2004

The dancer upstairs is low key but highly intelligent look at Latin American terrorist movements like the Maoist Sendero Luminoso in Peru. Malkovich looks at the personal lives of individuals caught up in or affected by the violent philosophies of a charismatic leader. Such a treatment of the story makes for a subtle but strong film. Javier Bardim is quite likeable as the decent lawman trying to capture a vicious terrorist, while in the employ of a regime that is itself corrupt, violent and ironically deserving of destruction. The film was done in English by Latin American actors. This makes for a very authentic and well textured film, but the accents are sometimes a bit difficult. The film is well worth viewing though.

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20 out of 22 people found the following review helpful:

I'm being unfair

PeterSays from , 10th April, 2007

I am one of the huge legions who admire JM but being an outstanding actor doesn’t guarantee competence as a director. Now, I know I’m being unfair on The Dancer Upstairs because I can’t have seen more than half an hour of it before switching off and condemning it as empty and pretentious. I plink particularly plink disliked the plink plink music, used to build up plink plink tension and why were all the dialogues muffled? Perhaps that is what the world sounds like with your head up your plink plink bottom.

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8 out of 9 people found the following review helpful:

Superb

Gus from Winchester, 20th April, 2004

For me 5 stars is reserved for real classics and I'm not sure this quite makes those ranks but it is close. Grippingly realistic with a fair amount of subtlety in the plot. I didn't have a problem with the accents and would actually have preferred it to be in Spanish with subtitles for even greater realism (no I don't speak Spanish).
Bruce Willis it aint (thankfully).

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6 out of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Nick Shakespeare's 'Immanuel Kant in Love'

A Customer from North Cornelly, South Wales, 23rd July, 2007

This one is straight out of the Noam Chomsky light entertainment hit list - and it is absolutely brilliant, but clearly not everyone's cup of tea. What the reviews seem to have missed is that what is underneath this is a screenplay that is a close adaptation of Nicholas Shakespeare's novel - which is itself a very close outline of events linked to Peru's 'Sendero Luminoso.' The final shots look to be a parody but they reproduce in, documentary form, the incarceration and display of Abimael Guzmán. The script (and the book) explores Guzmán's evolution from bourgeois Kantian professor to brutal Maoist agent provocateur and his extra-ordinary impact on ordinary peasants around him. Where Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin place Yves Montard and Jane Fonda in a sausage factory, here we have the subliminal and picture perfect Javier Bardem in a film that is accessible and conclusive. The non-linear approach provides 'clues' to the viewer in the form of its soundtrack and the impressionistic layering of the narrative. This sounds like cr*p, but - simply - you get the picture as you watch the film. Alongside there are breathless action sequences such as the assasination of the Army Colonel by the schoolgirl gang and the terror in the Theatre which demand to be watched again. Its a challenging and extremely contemporary film which finds time to reach straight to the heart through its central character. Quite simply you must do the research on this one before or after but regard it as a documentary. The John Malkovich short has been edited by the Sundance crew to look like 'Living With Narcissism' - which is a pity for him, but it is hilarious especially when his train stops at points in South London.

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very good

A Customer from London, 30th October, 2009

if you love javier bardem and john malkovich, this movie is definetely a must-see.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review helpful:

The Dancer Upstairs

MAXIMILIAN from , 18th September, 2009

THE DANCER UPSTAIRS is a slow-burning, intelligent thriller directed (for the first time) by JOHN MALKOVICH. It is a watchable movie, with a good cast, but the film is ultimately let down by the fact that it is overlong. I would not watch it again.

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Not as good as it should be.

A Customer from Norwich, 19th July, 2009

I am always rather suspicious when actors decide to take up the director's chair, but at the time of its release I read a few reviews that suggested that 'The Dancer Upstairs' was an intelligent and incisive debut, so I had some expectation for this film. Alarm bells did start to ring however when we are told via a subtitle that the action was set 'Somewhere in South America'; and later, in 'The Capital City'. Can any story that is set in such a generalised setting really have anything meaningful to say? Can Malkovich really believe that all countries and cities in half a continent can be lumped together as one, their political situations and problems being treated as the same? It is rather an insulting and too convenient assumption, I think, one that may be forgiven in a film that didn't so obviously have pretensions to be so much more than a generic thriller. For it never really succeeds to be anything else; whilst dripping with self-importance. Though it is slickly filmed, and when the plot gathers momentum, it is entertaining. In the end though, it is the portrayal of the main character as father that is the most touching aspect of this film, the script never really allowing even such a fine actor as Javier Bardem to be convincing as anything else.

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The Dancer Upstairs

Jonsam from , 7th April, 2009

Excellent low key film with brilliant acting.

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