robert-temple-1 This remarkable film directed by the talented Steve Buscemi, is something of a tour de force. It is essentially a two-hander starring himself and Sienna Miller, then aged 26. Pulling off a two-hander which lasts as long as a feature film takes a great deal of talent and ingenuity, and there are few occasions when anything like this has occurred successfully. I would say that this film largely succeeds, therefore, at the impossible. It keeps us watching two people for 84 minutes. Try doing that in real life, much less on the screen. I can't imagine how Buscemi ever raised the money to make this risky film. He must have called in all his chips. Anyone with two eyes in his head can see that he pulled it off on screen and got lots of plaudits, but I doubt whether it ever earned its costs back. Presumably he worked for nothing and Sienna took a low fee. But even then, there's a crew to pay. How did they do it? We'll never know. But it was a foolhardy enterprise well worth undertaking. At least they can all feel good about themselves, and those few of us who have seen the result think all the better of them for it. I never really thought of Steve Buscemi as a serious figure before I saw this, because he often plays goofy guys in films and he never came to the fore in my consciousness (what little consciousness I may have). He always seemed to be hanging around as a supporting player in things, but you know, I am more interested in actresses, aren't I? But that brings me to Sienna Miller. I used to meet her and her sister when they were children and they were very polite, interesting, and pleasant kids. It also seemed obvious to me that Sienna had something special about her. But who thinks a kid is going to become a movie star? And yet sometimes they do. That was in the days when I was friends with her exasperating father, a friendship which ended badly. (I never met her mother, as by then the girls had one of their stepmothers.) So angry was I with Ed Miller, for good reason, that for a long time I refused to watch any movies with his daughter in them. However, due to my fondness for Terence Rattigan, I went along to the Old Vic to see one of his plays and there was little Sienna, now a big smiling girl with a huge personality, dominating the stage with plenty of charm and talent, and I thought: 'I've had this girl figured all wrong. She may be the daughter of Ed Miller, but what the hell, she's not him, she's her, and she's really got it and I must not hold anything against her.' So I broke down and watched one of her movies, and this was the one. I rush to confess that she is a really impressive person, chock full of talent and oomph, and long may she take part in Interviews, and I hope she gets stacks of Oscars, which doubtless she will do sometime if she keeps on like this. But let's not forget she is also dynamite on the stage, and I would say even more so than on screen, and that is saying something.

CineCritic2517 ..slowely becomes contrived and repetitive.The concept of this movie is an old one. I'm not sure which movie was the first to bring it to the silver screen, but as recent as 2006 we had 'Five Fingers' with Laurance Fishburn which, like this movie, doesn't exactly pull it off.The one that most definitely does pull it off is of course 'The Interview' from 1998 with that other Matrix icon: Hugo Weaving. I've never seen the original Dutch version by van Gogh, nor do I wish to. Watching a Dutch person trying to act is like watching a bad TV commercial trying to to be artistic.Steve Buscemi is a wonderful actor and proved with this film that he can also write. The trouble with the movie is that near the end it loses focus too much, there are too many illogical scenes and we already know what is about to happen.I personally like my movies with at least a satisfying ending. And although the performances were quite strong, the movie could have been much better if they had worked on the ending a tad more. It felt like they got tired after writing the first 3/4 of it and then just gave the rest a good once over.Too bad, 6/10

r0cko723 I am a fan of Steve Buscemi. He is the real deal as an actor and as a director. He has done elite work as a performer and as an artist. Everyone fails somewhere, in some endeavor. Not a big deal. We all fail with some regularity in our lives -- at least, those of us who are human. So, this is a somewhat clumsy apology for the failure of "Interview." Here's the thing. It sucked. It sucked so badly I was knocked back on the couch, even if said collapse could be attributed to the four Budweiser American Ales (new brand) and three vodka Collins drinks I downed in order to be able to get through an hour and five minutes of the film. I will admit to being too weak to make my way through the rest. I had to turn it off, out of respect to Steve. I am not even close to being ready to concede that Buscemi has regressed as a director -- say, from "Trees Lounge" in 1996 to "Interview" more than a decade later. "Lounge" was the real deal, believable even if incredible in a few spots. What made it credible? I don't know for sure, but it stayed true to its turf. In "Trees Lounge," Buscemi's character gets to make out with Debi Mazar's hot and inebriated character. "No way!" you say? I say, "Way!" It's all about the setting, environment, and setup. I could very well buy that happening at Trees Lounge. Raise your hands, all who are chronic alcoholics. I see out there . . . not many hands, but a few. I have my hand raised. I am a long-time drunk and failure. I feel this gives me a modicum of "credential" in assessing films that leverage the motifs of drunkenness, addiction, and failure. -- But of course, that is delusional. Just because I am a f*&kup does not mean I have any ability to assess a work about f*&^ups. But forgive me. I digress. What makes "Interview" so bad is the contrived circumstances that are twisted in shape to enable the plot device of having a somewhat geeky journalist get in bed with a paparazzi wet dream diva. There are many bad devices that should have been edited before going full tilt with this one. Look, diva stars don't do B movie schlock. They don't do B horror movies. They do manufactured crap romance pieces. If they aren't pop superstars out of the gate or genuine teen stars that get great coverage with films like, I don't know, "Mean Girls" for instance, then they remain B movie actresses and never achieve celebrity. This movie got the sequence of events wrong in the "celebritization" of the object of the interview. Beyond that, the dialogue was so contrived and artificial as to be painful. I am not sure if the shortcoming should be attributed to the delivery of the actors or to the script, but the banter was not credible. The circumstances were not credible, and the movement toward increased intimacy of the two leads was not credible. Now, maybe it could have been credible. . . . But it wasn't credible as presented. It really failed, really badly. The babe lead would not have gotten into the male lead, given the setup. And even if we allow for the intervening set of circumstances that re-united them, . . . I'm sorry. This thing devolved into really bad meta-melodrama. Hey, if you don't agree, feel free to attribute it to my progressive loss of sensibilities due to advancing age, substance abuse, and life. If you want to see what Steve can do as a director, see "Trees Lounge." Okay. I am still a confirmed Buscemi fan and I love him. Just burn that copy of "Interview." Peace. Out.

Subhamoy Sengupta This kind of effort is rare in Hollywood. I will not say it is the most intellectual thing I could expect to see, and it was predictable to me in places, but for general audience and intellectual wannabes, it might be more striking or less than it was to me.When you do expect something unorthodox, and you do get it, maybe you say "it was predictable" and maybe you feel kind of dull because you could not stand up and say "Brava! Brava!" thinking the film sort of beat your brainwaves to it, but you also feel glad, thinking someone is kind of thinking about demands of your level and trying to meet the same. From that point of view, I thank Steve Buscemi cordially.Pierre (Buscemi) used to cover the hottest political issues and scandals for a famous TV channel. But for some reason, his editor is sending him to cover "God-awful fluff pieces". Eventually, he has to let go of an important coverage over interviewing Katya (Sienna Miller). She does TV shows and B-movies, but mostly she is famous for the celebrities she sleeps with. Pierre's reactions can be easily imagined.He went to interview Katya thinking girls like her probably have "silicon for brain cells" and what homework should he possibly have done to handle people like that? But through a chain of events that are neither intentional nor unforeseen, they stick together for the night, conducting a one-of-a-kind interview.Some people have criticized this film rather harshly. That's rather unfortunate. If Antonioni made a film like this, most of them would not grab all of it, but would not be able to criticize so boldly because he was an intellectual behemoth. Now that Buscemi gave it a try, those who are happy with "The Departed" and "Chicago" started to say it's such a waste of talent made to look like intellectual crap. Well, it is not. It is an honest film. And may not be the mirror to the height of profundity of human mind, but still quite admirable a work.If Buscemi had more experience, he would perhaps work a little more on the ending. It is a popular trick to run the film slow and give a sudden end twist when audience was just about to "Is that all there is?" This film's end twist is rather subtle and it loses its impact due to a little naive direction.Sienna Miller was a wise choice for this. Those who accidentally bought the tickets without knowing what kind of a film they were about to watch, won't be 100% disappointed because looking at Sienna Miller is always a feast for sore eyes. She pulls off everything exactly like she Buscemi told her to, I am sure. She never came so much in focus before. I will eagerly wait to see more of her in days to come.In the end, bottom line is the same as always. It's your mind, it's your head. Either you will appreciate Buscemi's effort, or you won't. I did. He did what he could.