Charlie Cassanova

Review and Trailer Comments

• KickedArse

  I really think the box-office will do the talking with this one. I went to see it this weekend in The Lighthouse and the reaction after was laughable. I heard someone on Joe Duffy yesterday comparing it to Citizen Kane because of the bad reviews. This is utter madness. It's an awful film and the director is coming across horribly every time he opens his mouth

  Posted 12:42 | Tue 15th May 2012

• Stephen

  One of the most Pretentious pieces of terrible terrible story telling that I ever let myself sit through, well I lasted about 30 mins before my brain begged me to leave.

  Posted 20:13 | Tue 15th May 2012

• JoeHallenback

  One of the worst films I have ever seen. Pretentious beyond articulation and almost arrogantly abrasive. A horrible, horrible film.

  Posted 12:35 | Tue 8th May 2012

• Dan

  Great to see Ireland at least trying to make movies again; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtUBMSIkgPc

  Posted 14:38 | Wed 9th May 2012

• FilmBuff76

  I don't think you can call Charlie Casanova a film... it's more of an audience endurance test really. My advice is to skip it and wait for the low-key Irish charmer A Kiss For Jed, which is out next week.

  Posted 17:33 | Wed 9th May 2012

• FilmBuff76

  Charlie Casanova is an angry, primal howl of a film. While it's interesting to see an Irish film that is provocative and pushes its audience's buttons, it's definitely a hard sell and will no doubt divide people right down the middle. Charlie (Emmett Scanlan) is a Dublin sociopath who hates women, the working classes and, well, just about everyone else. When he knocks someone down with his car, he turns to his deck of cards to decide the fate of his future decisions. As events spiral out of control, Charlie starts to lose a grip on his life and those around him... Emmett Scanlan gives a remarkable performance as Charlie, every ounce of malice and hatred burning away behind those searing eyes. Technically, it's a well-made film but it ultimately fails to work because all of the characters seem to inhabit another world altogether. They're completely unlikeable, unrelateable and unsympathetic - and audience empathy is so important in most films. Director Terry McMahon seems to be quite a character and even though he denies it, there seems to be a fair bit of Charlie in him. That certainly comes across in his direction, which is angry and confrontational. Think very carefully about whether you want to see this film. Fortunately, I saw it for free but it really is hard to imagine why anyone would want to hand over their hard-earned cash to watch this film.

  Posted 11:14 | Sat 5th May 2012

• Bertaut

  "Charlie Casanova is a profound, strident and unremitting critique of contemporary Ireland and must not be missed by modern Irish civilization's discontents." Couldn't have put it better myself. This is a ferocious beast of a film which confronts the audience in ways you rarely see. Powerful and masterful in every way, it's the best Irish film since Jim Sheridan's The Field.

  Posted 22:20 | Mon 14th May 2012

• Ryan Fitzpatrick

  Charlie Casanova is not a portrayal of a sociopath but instead of a sick man in a sick society alone, but disastrously, trying to become healthy. It is a merciless judgment of the Irish bourgeoisie: materialistic, workaholic, complacent and conventional; and also of the Irish proletariat: vicious and parasitical. Nevertheless, Charlie Casanova is remiss in offering no cultural alternative to the prevailing bourgeois and proletarian lifestyles of contemporary Ireland. Charlie Casanova, himself, is a psychotic who becomes antisocial against his own sensitive nature in reaction to the prevailing bourgeois and proletarian lifestyles of contemporary Ireland which drain and deaden Irish life. If he were written as an existential character who reinvents himself through his imagination, experience and study rather than one who renews himself by substituting conventionality and reason for gambling, Charlie Casanova could have offered an alternative culture to the bourgeois and proletarian for today's Ireland. Nevertheless, Charlie Casanova is a profound, strident and unremitting critique of contemporary Ireland and must not be missed by modern Irish civilization's discontents.

  Posted 16:26 | Sat 12th May 2012

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