Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

What a fantastic movie... beautifully shot, terrific story, incredible music. Belizaire carries his torch for Alida, the love of his life, to the end, and uses his knowledge of superstitions to get his way. A fairly accurate portrayal of life in the Bayou, and the prejudices faced by the Acadian settlers, and how so many of them dealt with it. In my opinion, this has to be one of Armand Assante's best roles. Humor, tragedy, excitement, and intrigue, all rolled into one package. The only reason I can figure that this movie has gotten a low rating here is that there must be a number of people who are heavily weighted voters that simply voted it down with the good olé' "it was stupid," (read: I have no idea what was going on, nothing exploded, people had funny accents, and the music was weird)mentality. See it, decide for yourself.

BELEZAIRE THE CAJUN is a film with a major problem. It tries to tell about a rather obscure part of American history (and THAT kills a mass market box office hook to get 'em into the theaters), and it tries to tell the story in an accurate, realistic way that doesn't whitewash some of the darker aspects of America's past. John Sayle's film MATEWAN did the same thing, and has exactly the same problems... and like MATEWAN, BELEZAIRE THE CAJUN is a deep, intense, and INTELLIGENT film which demands an intelligent audience. There's a big difference between the two films tho; BELEZAIRE tells it's story with a large dose of HUMOR along with the serious realities.In short... people either LOVE the film, or they HATE it. I'm on the LOVE side.Unless you lived in Cajun country, it's probable that you never learned anything about thier history or culture in school. To those of us who didn't, the film is a painless and interesting introduction... for me, it opened a door for further exploration. Up to BELEZAIRE THE CAJUN, the only exposure I'd had to this culture was an insane Cajun drill sergeant at Lackland Air Force Base... and suffice it to say that HE wasn't a strong inducement to further exploration of the subject! Just the same tho, BELEZAIRE had the effect of giving me a bit of understanding of where old Sergeant Cormier was coming from culturally, and long after the fact I understood him just a bit better.An awful lot of us don't realize that Cajuns were, and ARE, a discriminated against minority in America. Learning that alone is worth the time to see the film. Besides that lesson, we get a pretty good overview of Cajun life and culture in the period. We see a fiercely independent people who accepted thier isolation from the American society at large and did so proudly, building thier own society within the American one, deep in the Louisiana bayous.As I said... this is a film that you either hate or love, but I'd recommend it strongly.

I am puzzled by the low rating for this film. It stands as one of my all-time favorite films. Every aspect of it shines, writing, directing, acting, soundtrack. It's a beautiful film about a little-known piece of American history, and it shows the underpinnings of a culture most of us know only as a reference to food. In particular, the soundtrack by Beausoleil is a masterpiece of fitting the cultural music to the mood.Cultural insights aside, the story is moving and the characters are fully realized individuals. Belizaire in particular is complex, funny, and touching -- a healer who gets by on his wits and truly cares for his people.Don't let the low-rating here dissuade you. If you get the chance to see the movie see it, and you may find a lifelong favorite, too.

This is a fine film-- not necessarily a great one, but one with some great content. Armand Assante, who like the late character actor, J. Carrol Naish, is able to place himself seamlessly in almost any ethnic role, from a Cuban to a Greek, is Belizaire, the Cajun. Little knowledge will be gained about these marvelous people who were expelled in early 19th century British ethnic cleansing from L'Acadie, a region near present-day Quebec, to the Dominican Republic, scattered along the eastern seaboard of the US and then making their way back to Francophone Louisiana. The term 'Cajun,' comes from a local pronunciation of Acadian. The Cajuns fiercely separate themselves ethnically from the other descendants of the French immigrants, the Creoles both culturally and linguistically and doggedly maintain their cultural traditions into the present time. This film, which is not at all badly done, touches little of that and gives only a tiny taste of Cajun culture...but in the brief spot using the music of Michael Doucet and his band, Beausoleil-- what a taste! The plot, Belizaire is an entrepreneur and pleasant con-man who's in a love competition with Will Patton (in an early role), leads to complications in which Belizaire is willing to sacrifice his life to bring peace with his non-Cajun neighbors. In the end, Belizaire uses his quick wits and con-man skills to make the situation right. I would have liked to have seen much more of the Cajun way of life brought in. But, there were some fine local scenes and the costumes and settings looked great. The Cajuns are a fascinating group of people with wonderful music and traditions. We get only occasional glances of this rapidly disappearing way of life and this film adds another glimpse which should not be passed up, no matter how imperfect it is. This film is available on video and is certainly worth the price of rental. If it crops up on the late show, I would certainly check it out.