Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It's 1942 and 9 months after Pearl Harbor. Gen. Leslie Groves (Paul Newman) expected to move out from behind the desk to go to the frontlines. Instead, he is transferred to his perceived dead-end boondoggle. Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz) advises him to gather the scientists in an isolate place for creative stress. Together they would lead the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Michael Merriman (John Cusack) is the young wide-eyed scientist. Kathleen Robinson (Laura Dern) is the nurse who falls for him. He befriends Capt. Schoenfield (John C. McGinley) who is the doctor investigating radiation. Seth Neddermeyer comes up with the idea for implosion. Oppenheimer is cheating on his wife Kitty (Bonnie Bedelia) with communist sympathizer Jean Tatlock (Natasha Richardson).The movie achieves something a little more difficult. It made a bunch of scientists interesting and it made the science understandable. I do hope that the story is more fact than fiction. However I won't rest my review on its accuracies. Paul Newman delivers a forceful performance. I wish Dwight Schultz is a bigger actor to counter Newman's star power. The story is compelling although the puppy love story is a bit artificial.

Never have I seen a film so boring, so downplayed, so exposition-laden, so god-awfully slow, it gives the same effect of rubbing sandpaper on your eyes. The only character worth a damn is Paul Newman's character, not only because Paul Newman is a damn good actor, but he had some generally funny scenes in this flick. Dwight Schultz on the other hand, is more or less like a dirty old rock you find on the side of the road. When he yells his lines, it's like sticking a grasshopper in your ear; unpleasant and obnoxious. The next problems with casting come down to John Cusack and Laura Dern. As for John Cusack, he just adds to the awkward blandness of the film, and it feels like a Matthew Broderick-esque performance, and you don't really feel anything for or from him, which definitely comes in to play in the second and third act. For Laura Dern, however, I feel bad that she literally only got a minimal amount of screen time, and had an even blander character than Dwight Schultz. It's a shame, because we know Laura Dern can act, and the fact that they don't really do anything with her makes it all the more disappointing.But away from the characters. This is the story of the Manhatten Project, the infamous nuclear bomb experiments. you'd think a movie about bombs would have some decent explosions in it, right? Come on, I know your inner man-child lust for destruction is begging for some fiery mushrooms in the sky! And what do we get? A couple little poofs and a nuclear explosion we barely even see. So, not only is the writing your average sandpapery boringness of a war-movie-that-doesn't-actually-have- very-much-war-in-it, not only does it have some typically boring actors besides Laura Dern and Paul Newman, and not only is this film blander than bread, it doesn't have any good explosions in it! By God, if I'm gonna watch a movie about bombs, it better show some good explosions!In conclusion, yes, this movie really should be avoided. There are definitely other movies you could watch on this subject. Hell, you could just watch a documentary on it and get the same information. So, don't bother watching it because it would be a waste of a good couple of hours, a couple hours where you could watch some actually good war movies based on WWII. Like Full Metal Jacket or Saving Private Ryan.

Fat Man & Little Boy plays like the Cliff's Notes version of an important period in history and science. The first moment we see a carefree, laughing Oppenheimer, it is obvious that the film is going to take quite a few liberties with characterization. When Paul Newman strides onto the scene, accompanied by "Patton"-like music, all credibility is immediately destroyed. My major problem with Fat Man & Little Boy is the character of Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was a complex character, a misfit, a neurasthenic polymath. This film only scratches the surface of his personality, and the actor who plays him is horribly miscast, although he tries his best. Towards the final days of the Project, Oppenheimer had become extremely thin and cadaverous. The constant hounding by Communist hunters digging into his personal life coupled with his moral qualms about the use of the Bomb threw him into a state of nervous exhaustion bordering on paranoia. There is no hint of the inner man in this portrayal. The community of physicists at Los Alamos was a collection of brilliant and unusual men. There were many conflicts and a lot of competition going on which are pretty much ignored. It was frustrating to see all of this potentially rich material cast aside in order to simplify the film and make it accessible. In addition to ignoring the real characters involved in the Manhattan Project and misinterpreting the ones it treats, the film introduces John Cusak as the "Everyman Physicist," a fictional character created to humanize(?)the subject and engage the "average viewer," along with the obligatory love interest. This slows the movie down to a crawl and it was walking pretty slowly to begin with. This movie takes a situation rich in drama and conflict coupled with scientific and historical interest and turns it into a boring, simplistic soap opera.

I watched this years ago on television when I was sick (I don't know, I tend to be more complacent with my TV viewing when I'm sick; too much effort to use the remote control, I guess).From what I can recall, every aspect of the movie--casting, acting, writing, directing, etc.--was ill-advised at best. I could have forgiven the historical inaccuracies if this film had created a sense of what it was like to work on Trinity; but it didn't. There were attempts to humanize the scientists, but they were insufficient and never transcended caricature.I didn't know very much about the people involved in the Manhattan Project at the time, but the portrayals in the movie were so cartoonish that I became interested in learning about the real personalities. And I did. So I guess this horrible film has done a very small amount of good, after all.This is not an in-depth review, but FMLB neither deserves nor requires one. You might enjoy it if you're a fan of bad movies.