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.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 1, 2006

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.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 1, 2006

Is it just me or is Matt Dillon just getting better with age?

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 23, 2006

Factotum, for all its grim grind, is funny-serious, and smart-stupid.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 23, 2006

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

Full Review | Sep 20, 2006

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.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 15, 2006

I just didn't think the comic touches were very subtle and very funny and the other stuff we've just seen before.

Full Review | Sep 5, 2006

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.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 1, 2006

Even the most bleary, bloodshot eyes will see a wrenching faithfulness of spirit in Matt Dillon's candid portrayal of Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's autobiographical doppelgänger.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 1, 2006

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

| Original Score: C | Sep 1, 2006

One of the few films that gets to the heart of what a writer does and how he does it, without the clichés of pages being torn from the typewriter, crumpled and tossed on the floor.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 1, 2006

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

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 31, 2006

At times, the picture recalls Jim Jarmusch at his very best, with all the self-indulgent parts cut out.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Aug 31, 2006

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

| Aug 25, 2006

It's a deadpan comedy that looks upon the world with an honesty and impassiveness worthy of its protagonist -- and of the author standing behind him.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 25, 2006

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

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 25, 2006

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.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 25, 2006

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

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 25, 2006

Almost 20 years after Barfly, Factotum mostly feels... unnecessary.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 25, 2006

One of the more striking aspects of Hamer's wily adaptation is the way it undercuts the seedy glamour of the author's cult even as it reinforces it.

| Original Score: B | Aug 25, 2006