Writer: Alvin Sargent
Director: Sydney Pollack
Cast: Al Pacino, Guido Alberti, Anny Duperey, Gerard Hernandez, Dorothy James, Marthe Keller
Rating: PG
Studio: Sony Home Entertainment
Release Date: March 11, 2008

All actors have a bad movie sometime. At least that’s what I told myself when I watched this movie. Al Pacino is an actor that anyone could admire. He plays strong roles beautifully and has a grace and charm of which most other actors are envious. However, every now and then there comes a movie that just has no point to it. Bobby Deerfield is that movie. It’s useless. The storyline is a snooze and the characters are depressingly dull.

I had high hopes for this in the beginning. It’s a movie about a race car driver that just happens to star Al Pacino. I love NASCAR, so I was hoping to see some racing and perhaps a good storyline. In truth, the racing is kept to a minimum and the story was just terrible enough to not want to bring it up at all.

Being fair, some of the acting wasn’t that bad. I suppose most of the problems can be blamed on the director since he obviously wasn’t making a quality film. I don’t know what he was doing. For all I know he was sleeping through the entire thing. Whatever he was doing, it wasn’t anything that dealt with making a good or even memorable film. Sadly, it’s hard to say this is even bad, because by the time it’s over you are thoroughly ready to put it out of your mind. It’s entirely forgettable.

Release Information:
I don’t know how the reception was back when this movie came out, but I have to imagine that it was as big of a disappointment back then as it is now. Bobby Deerfield was made after two of The Godfather movies had come out. Serpico had been out by now, as well. All that kept going through my mind is that this is not the kind of film that is made after those films. Not only that, but Pacino went to extensive lengths to be in this film. As a racecar driver, Pacino had to actually learn to drive for the sparse driving scenes that were in the film. If you watch the film you will wonder why he even bothered, because there really aren’t many driving scenes at all.

Fans of Pacino have given this film mixed reviews. Some say it is underrated and deserves better attention and others contend that it’s a pathetic film with a weak story that has no point. It’s been called both a mood piece and a piece of garbage. You will have to decide what it is to you. Sony Home Entertainment released Bobby Deerfield on March 11, 2008. You can pick this up at various retailers including Amazon where it retails for around $15.

The Bobby Deerfield Plot
Bobby Deerfield (Al Pacino) is a racecar driver from America. As the movie begins, we soon find him heading to Europe when a close friend in the business ends up dying in a racing accident. Deerfield is not altogether convinced it was an accident, but he cannot understand what would cause his friend or any other experienced racer, to end up experiencing such a fatal crash. He heads to Europe on a mission to meet with another driver that might be able to understand what Deerfield is interested in learning about.

However, while on this vacation Deerfield meets a woman named Lillian (Marthe Keller). Lillian is incredibly different from the stale, yet steady Deerfield. Naturally, Deerfield finds her incredibly enticing. While she is a free spirit, he is confined to a more boring existence. He is attracted to her fly by night attitude because he is only able to be a bad ass on the track and even then, its highly debateable.

At some point, work calls and Deerfield ends up heading back home to Lydia (Anny Duperey), his girlfriend, and his everyday life. This situation is even more difficult to watch than the one above because these two have the chemistry of shag carpet and a piece of tin foil. At some point Deerfield learns that the fair Lillian is dying, which may make sense with her attitude and carefree persona, and from there the movie swims even further into the abyss.

Some have compared Bobby Deerfield to Love Story. There is one problem with this comparison. The latter was a good movie. Bobby Deerfield on the other hand, was not. In the end, it felt like a bad European knockoff of a movie that had been done before, in a much nicer fashion. Meanwhile, this ends up being unsatisfying, boring, and more or less forgettable.

Storyline/Plot:
Replayability:
Acting:
Directing:

Audio/Visual:
The quality here is somewhere around average. It is not by any means special. It may have been cleaned up some from the original film quality, but I doubt there was much cleaning done. There are some scratches that appear here and there, some softness and a basic feel to it that doesn’t allow much of anything to stand out. It really is a drab picture performance for a drab movie.

Audio is available in Dolby Digital Surround 5.1. The original mono is also included. Having surround sound in this is rather pointless because the majority of the film is just plain music and dialogue. While there are a few special sound effects or racing sounds, they are few and far between. Unfortunately, the dialogue needs toggled at a different level than these other sounds, so there are some volume adjustments that had to be done throughout the film. Included along with the standard audio are subtitles in French, English, and Spanish.

Visual:
Audio:

Bonus Features:
There are a few special features that come with Bobby Deerfield. The first and perhaps the most interesting is a behind the scenes look at Pacino’s upcoming film, 88 Minutes. This sneak peek lasts for about eleven minutes. It is somewhat obvious or at least very good timing that this release was timed with the upcoming, 88 Minutes. If you didn’t want to see this new Pacino flick, after watching this you probably will.

Along with the Behind the Scenes peek at 88 Minutes there is a $10 coupon that can be used towards your admission to see the film in theaters. You have a month from the opening weekend of the film to use the coupon so you won’t want to miss it. Depending on your area you should be able to get in free, which makes it even more worth seeing.

Finally, there are several trailers included for such movies as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Comanche Moon, Damages, and other Sony properties. The most interesting thing about these features, as you might have noticed, is that none of them seem to have anything to do with Bobby Deerfield. Of course, with as boring as this film was I have to admit that I am rather thankful for that.

Bonus Features:

Bottom Line:
Bobby Deerfield is a surprisingly boring movie. It’s hard to imagine that anything with Pacino could be called boring, but that is certainly the case here. It’s a movie about a race car driver that is rarely, if ever, seen racing. Instead it’s a dreadful love story that seriously has no point. The acting is substandard, the plot is nil, and I cannot even recommend renting this. If you really need to waste close to two hours of your time you could attempt to remove your toenails with rusty pliers. At the end of the day, you might find you found more entertainment that way.

Overall Rating:

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