This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I enjoyed this movie for what it was - a simple story about family. I found that it offered nothing unique it terms of plot, acting, etc. The on-again-off-again relationship between Ivan and his wife was unconvincing to me. I could not understand their motivations each time that they changed their opinion of each other, making the characters a little less believable. Also, I was expecting the movie to be funny - which it was not. Other than that, I enjoyed watching it for the nice sense of a strong family (even if it's a bit contrived) and how they handle adversity. I would not watch this film again, nor would I go out of my way to see it. However, if you have nothing better to do, and you just want to sit down, not think a whole lot, and be mildly entertained, then this is the movie for you.

Al Pacino is obviously a great actor, but when he goes soft for a role, he can be insufferably soft. Here, as a New York City playwright with a new show about to open on Broadway, he's mechanically turned on, yet there's no sparkle in his eyes. Pacino's wife walks out on him, leaving him to care for his gaggle of kids and step-kids, but the viewer is ready to feel more for the wife (Tuesday Weld) than we're expected to. This Neil Simon-wannabe tries putting a funny spin on the divorce-movie formula (with a little "Goodbye Girl" tossed in for good measure), but the scenario is unconvincing and the jokes are tepid. Dyan Cannon gives it a big boost as a movie actress trying her hand on the stage, but poor Al just looks beat. Who knows? Maybe he thought this would be his "Kramer vs. Kramer". ** from ****

I caught this one on the TV and frankly speaking this is from Al Pacino's lean period in the eighties. The movie is enjoyable but I was astounded by the dysfunction inherent in the characters. Wow! This is kind of situation I never thought possible in anybody's life. Apparently I was wrong. At first I thought this was a script resulting from an epiphany of a humorous writer but catching shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil I realize there are families which are like the characters of this movie.OK! Al Pacino is this famous Broadway playwright who is writing a play whose opening day isn't far off given the fact that the play isn't even finished. He is this family man who lives with his beautiful wife (Tuesday Weld) and a bunch of kids who you at first assume to be his. Surprise! Surprise! These are an assortment of kids from Pacino's character's previous marriage, current marriage and most of them from his wife's previous unions. Curiously enough these kids are crazy about him and they love each other very much. The problem starts when Pacino's wife tells him that she is leaving him for another man leaving all the kids with him (they prefer to be with him anyway). After that starts this crazy comedy of errors where he tries to finish the play before its deadline, get his wife back, romances the lead actress of his play and send the kids to their actual fathers from where they run away back to him getting the law involved. Its outrageous and hilarious at the same time.Its funny but may not appeal to the funny side of many people (which may have decided it's box-office fate). What amazed me was how the children loved and sympathized with Pacino's character and even advised him against getting back with their mom. Weird! But funny and touching.Anyway many of you may not like it but I assure you that you will not be bored!

Even "Cruising" suited you better than this, and I naively thought that was you hitting rock-bottom. I suppose had I glanced at the respective CV's of both the writer and director before viewing, that should have been enough to give me a slight clue (Pacino teams with writer of "See no Evil, Hear no Evil"- Yeah, I can see why that somehow won't be on any re-release posters!); but nothing could have reasonably prepared me for the mind-numbing awfulness that is this film.The synopsis I read promised something of a 'comedic' turn from the esteemed leading man; Sure, if 'comedic turn' is a handy insider euphemism for 'rancid heap of vomit-inducing mush'... ... It's criminal to see such a talented performer marooned in a vehicle so abject as this; a picture that even an individual noted for their generosity in spirit would shrink away from and crawl fearfully back to watching 'sitcom-lite'. It's so bland that this colourlessness becomes an insulting element in itself. What meagre humour there is is so desperate to generate any kind of reaction that it resorts to mining attempted chuckles from child-abuse, of all topics. Not just edging toward, but apparently happily camped in 'distasteful' territory, I'm sure most of you will agree... This kind of trash deserves the misfortune of a Z-grade celeb saddled with 'headlining' it - not the finest actor of his generation. If you've ever had a burning, deeply shameful and dirty desire to see Al Pacino in a "Home Alone" flick; don dark glasses to rent this, watch it ONCE only and then commit yourself to good deeds for the rest of your natural days. Or failing that, just 'commit' yourself! Dreck like this is mercifully likely the closest our society will come to the realisation of such a hideous nightmare; until Satan decides to sublet Hell as a skating rink, that is!I'm convinced this title is a hidden subliminal insert from a worried distributor, drawn from the wailing of a traumatised audience member dragged raving from a test-screening. His mostly incoherent babble was meant as the beginning of a tirade against the scripter for being so callously inhumane as to subject him to this utter pap.I refuse to believe that "Revolution"; the film that kept Al Pacino away from our cinema screens for four years (85-89), can possibly be any worse than this; but shudderingly I think that I might once have possessed the brashness to say the same about "Cruising" when THAT review was in genesis, too... Imagine waking in the morning to the horrified surprise of finding a neighbour had laid a bowel movement on your doorstep. Maybe this will help you to partially assimilate my reaction as I sat and watched "Author! Author!" unfold before my disbelieving and silently weeping eyes. Thus I know not to so casually prejudge "Revolution" before I see; because until this morning I thought I'd see nothing more heinous from Pacino than "Cruising"... It was a brighter world at that time, untainted by such pure evil in celluloid form - but alas, now my relative innocence has been snatched away from me, and I have experienced the toxicity of some things that writers and directors are capable of dredging up from the fetid cesspools that must surely constitute their minds...Run now, while you can. Save yourselves from such a pile of insipid garbage. A klaxon-call if ever there was one, and you can quote me on it, if you wish...1/10.