Wick's Review

Summary - Great 4.0

One of the more charming scenes in movie history and Al Pacino’s roaring performance mark Scent of a Woman as a great movie. The super-charming scene is, of course, the serendipitous tango that Pacino performs with a winsome Gabrielle Anwar. Sneaking up out of nowhere, it seduces the audience as it seduces Anwar’s lonesome woman, builds to a graceful climax, then evanesces into the ether.
Cinematic charm comes no smoother.

Pacino’s performance – showy and brilliant – yielded his only Best Actor Oscar. No actor better inhabits a character’s better angels and corrupting demons.

Martin Brest peaked directing Scent of a Woman. Is it better or worse than the Italian original? It’s certainly very Italian in tone, what with the charming lecher’s macho fixation on status and seduction. Be that as it may, the American version lives on as a cinematic delight.

Acting - Great 4.0

Pacino comes dangerously close to chewing the scenery in his über-bravura performance as an accomplished man brought low by hubris. Is this the performance for which he deserved his sole Best Actor Oscar? No, but it’s the one he won. Hooah!

That said, the scene in which he gives no hint of being blind after being pulled over for speeding is acting par excellence. Think about it: a seeing actor is playing a blind man who is acting like he can see. Deep.

A young Chris O’Donnell, pre-Robin even, impressively hangs in there with the great thespian.

Other notables:

• Philip Seymour Hoffman – looking like a preppy Brian Jones – delivers an early instance of the morally slippery characters he plays so well.
• Nicholas Sadler also impresses as another blueblood asshole.
• Gabrielle Anwar – looking terrific in a little black dress – tangos with Al in the movie’s signature scene.
• Bradley Whitford jumps offscreen, though only in a single scene. The guy’s a star.

Film - Very Good 3.5

The story juxtaposes a boy who acts like a good man against guys who act like bad boys. Some of the bad boys are classmates of his, sons of privilege who can afford to be criminally callow. One is a real man who always takes wrong turns, a weakness that has brought him low. This structure reeks of dramatic tension, albeit with some elements that are too pat and and others that are too operatic. Then there’s the uproarious Hollywood ending, both pat and operatic. Hooah!

Edge - Risqué 2.1

Profuse profanity, much of it relating a soldier’s horny intentions, make this a risqué movie.

Reality - Glib 1.7

Could a blind man successfully drive a Ferrari at 70 MPH through a warehouse district? With some physical surrealism, sure.

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