Factotum: Critic Reviews

This is the sort of movie in which nothing happens -- in the worst sense.

Matt Dillon inhabits the role of Henry Chinanski, the alter ego of the writer Charles Bukowski, in Bent Hamer's adaptation of Bukowski's 1975 novel of the same name.

Wins you over even as it dares you to keep watching.

Hamer has created a tidy film about a fabulously messy man.

Bent Hamer's deadpan adaptation of the Charles Bukowski novel has an appealing listlessness, but it begs the question: Is there anything left to learn from this material?

There are a few laughs -- and a corking hangover.

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.

The beautiful joke of Factotum is that Dillon is nobility itself.

Hamer illuminates Bukowski's dark, sleazy little corner. He makes us feel with Hank and, surprisingly, at times, feel for him.

In cherry-picking the more filmable episodes from the novel, Hamer and Stark have constructed a sort of poor man's Barfly, with an emphasis on drunken mischief.

Dillon and director Hamer manage to give us a real Bukowski by avoiding the overly dramatic histrionics that sometimes marred Barbet Schroeder's similarly themed 1987 booze-drama, Barfly with Mickey Rourke.

This adaptation captures the late writer's unkempt soul.

An aimless movie about an aimless man is still an aimless movie.

While not really a complete film, Factotum functions as an atmospheric, diverting character study.

Factotum is right up there with Barfly as a distillation of Bukowskian badinage, despite the current film's sketchier provenance.

Arguably one of the best adaptations of Bukowski's work.

A seamy and funny adaptation of Charles Bukowski's 1975 novel Factotum.

This is one of the best movies of the year, and one of the two or three best performances.

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.

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.

After a while, Factotum surrenders to monotony and only the performances are likely to retain the viewer's interest. There's probably an audience for this film, but I suspect it's not a large one.

Bent Hamer mostly gets it right in Factotum, a sweetly observed character study

Bukowski deserves better than this dismal, wearisome adaptation of his novel, and so do Bukowski's fans. Director Bent Hamer's movie is ugly, depressing and persistently off-putting.

A surprisingly satisfying film, true to Bukowski and itself, a work that manages to make the man and his profane world more palatable without compromising on who he was and what he stood for.

An understated and atmospheric portrait of the artist as a young booze-hound built around a quiet but magnetic performance by Matt Dillon.