The Year That Trembled (2002)

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

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.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Important depiction of a time arguably as turbulent as our current. However, links (or even intimations of them) from past to present are lacking in this film. A faded standalone snapshot, the mood unimpassioned, (ironic given the manic, "trembling" tenor of those times). No room is made or left over for extrapolation or lessons learned--a great opportunity missed. Instead we're dished up startlingly superficial and hackneyed treatment of the era, ineffective character development, and lackluster performances from most of the cast. Further, the film is riddled with anachronisms and suffers from romanticism and historical revisionism--so it comes off as shallow and clichéd. Perhaps this film was made by people too young to understand the flavor of those times. If not, perhaps the filmmakers are part of a well-meaning but removed elite, who took their very best shot at depicting the lives and dramas of their characters, but the closest they could come was creating an approximated, somewhat patronizing, overly polite, "as-if" characterization--which naturally lacks passion, flow, human depth and complexity, and realism. In sum, it's like watching back to back episodes of the mundane NBC drama "American Dreams" (albeit, with a more liberal lean, fortunately), without the energy level. Just about that insightful, realistic, and compelling. In sum, clearly an earnest effort, tho emotionally blunted overall.

"The Year That Trembled" is a low budget indie drama full of has-beens and never-wases with poor execution and nothing going for it save the hot button issues derived from the deep gash in the American civilian population caused by the Vietnam conflict (circa 1970). Considering the whole matter of Vietnam has been examined countless times from all angles in much better formats and forums than this film from documentaries to dramas to all manner of hybrids, it's difficult to find a reason to recommend a film with such severe limitations and deficits as this one. Pass. (C-)

This is one of those things you marvel at: why did Martin Mull, Henry Gibson and Fred Willard do this? They couldn't have done it for the money. This film is so cheap that they have Fred carrying a kid to Canada on his moped (top speed 20 mph) from the Cleveland area. You know this because there's a sign by the side of the road that says" Border Crossing." He gives his daughter a present wrapped in crudely chopped up construction paper (they couldn't have sent someone to the local CVS for 50 cents worth of wrapping paper?) The make up seems to have been done by the local undertaker - Henry Gibson's face looks downright cooked.And these are minor concerns. The continuity, the dialogue, the plot! Oy! For those of you who have no idea of what happened at Kent State 30 some years ago - this ain't gonna help!

To me, this agreeable independent film is exactly what movie making should be about. There is a lot of heart in this story about an introspective young man and his friends dealing with the effects of an unpopular war on their small town lives. The film adaptation of the novel "The Year that Trembled" craftily inundates the peaceful setting of a farmhouse in a meadow with all the passions of 1970 anti-Vietnam War activities ranging from the serious to the inane. Reel footage from the period is artfully infused into the film, as are new characters whose presence and values help explain the legal, political and emotional moods of the era to those unfamiliar with that time. The result was a film that, although choppy at times, was most enjoyable.The characters were all well played. The only disappointment for me was that the part played by Casey (the book's eloquent main character) was diminished in order to develop the other roles.