The Age of Commercialism

A Masterpiece!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

I was surprised to see a movie with Lee Marvin and Paul Newman on the shelf. I'd never heard of it. Cool, let's try it.What a waste of time. The only 2 movies with stars in it that i imagine would be worse are "Pluto Nash"and "Leonard Part 6". Heck, the supporting cast included Gregory Sierra, Wayne Rogers, Hector Elizondo and Strother Martin. I like Rogers, but I didn't buy into his performance for even one second. The cast was not enough to save this Turkey in any manner.The dialog was horrible. The story just never seemed to develop,nor finish. There were 3 scenes with women. Only the scene with the ex wife did anything to advance the story, and that scene was lame.Cinematography? Mostly too washed out. There was one scene in the moonlight that was hilarious. We see him in what appears to be moonlit moment. Cut away, then right back to him and the lighting looks like midday.Carole King did the opening song. I suppose her singing would have fit with what they "wanted" this movie to be. The rest of the score was interesting, but incongruent. Sometimes sounding like Mike Post, sometimes western, some times folk or Mexican.I gave this 2 stars. Thinking back, I'm not sure why i was so generous.

When I read through the previous reviews for this film on IMDb, I noticed that quite a few folks thought this film was scant when it comes to script. This is absolutely the case, though at least having some excellent actors (Paul Newman and Lee Marvin) makes it watchable."Pocket Money" has a very simple plot. Rancher Jim Kane (Newman) is having some seriously bad luck and is broke. However, a guy with a shady reputation (Strother Martin) wants to employ him to go down into Mexico in order to buy some cattle. Once he arrives in Mexico, he meets up with his old friend Leonard (Marvin) and the two try to purchase cattle. However, LOTS of complications arise and a seemingly simple job turns sour."Pocket Money" is a very slow film that appears as if it was made up as the movie was being filmed. Sure, it might have had more to the script than that, but it sure didn't look like it did. But, with some actors (especially Paul Newman), I can live with this. Certainly not among the actors' best but a decent time-passer--plus you get to see Lee Marvin riding a horse while wearing a suit--and you can't see that every day.By the way, a couple songs (including the title song) are sung by Carole King. I really don't think these fit the movie well, as her style of singing and voice seem odd in a film set in Arizona and Mexico among cattle.

Asinyne (excuse me if spelling is wrong) says that Paul Newman's character in Pocket Money is basically the same as the one in the much better Hud. Well I'd advice the afore mentioned to go back and watch Hud again. In that classic movie, Newman plays a son of a bitch. In Pocket money he plays a far different type of character. Hud would have despised Jim Kane. It was a well acted acted movie, although I though Marvin overshadowed Newman. Strother Martin who has acted with Paul Newman on numerous occasions was as usual terrific. I liked the movie, but would not consider it one of Newman's best.I think I recall reading somewhere that the stars didn't get on while making this movie.

Two of America's better stars, a director who gave us Cool Hand Luke, a screenplay written by another titan, a title song and score by two great musicians, and all we have at the end of Pocket Money is 100 minutes gone. Pleasantly, mind you.I saw this movie when it was on ABC back in the mid seventies. It seemed cool and hip. Now, Pocket Money looks like what it really is--a great big hamburger bun, decked out with lots of fixings's, and no meat. Oh, everyone works really hard to improve the taste, and there's a couple of performances to relish (sorry), but I missed the stuff in the middle.I still liked it. A good bun can make or break a burger.