Charming and brutal

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

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

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I really wanted to like this movie. I like Pacino and I love Richard III. Most of it is quite good, but I'm afraid that one scene will always come to mind whenever I think of this film.Pacino is working on the following speech:Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams, To set my brother Clarence and the king In deadly hate the one against the other: And if King Edward be as true and just As I am subtle, false and treacherous, This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up, About a prophecy, which says that 'G' Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be. Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence comes.Pacino doesn't understand why Richard says that "G" will be the murderer. After all, the person that Richard is setting up is named Clarence. Instead of delving into the full meaning and believing that Shakespeare must have had a reason to use the words he did, Pacino just decides that he'll change the line to say that "C" will be the murderer.Arrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh! It would only take one look at the list of the characters of the play to find out that the character referred to as "Clarence" is really "George, the Duke of Clarence" so that the "G" does refer to Clarence after all. Not only that, but the prophecy actually refers to Richard himself, since he is "Richard, the Duke of Gloucester." Richard is "G", the murderer.Much of the film is very interesting and enjoyable, but I'm afraid that Pacino's hubris in thinking that he knows better than Shakespeare did will always color this film for me.

LOVED it! Al Pacino turned one of Shakespeare's most complicated plays into an absorbing experience, shedding light on how we can really deal with a Shakespearean text. He'll have you laughing, thinking, and wondering how you haven't noticed the beauty of such a play before.The integration of stage scenes and real life scenes, experts' opinions and ordinary passerbys' opinions, makes the documentary more vivid and engaging. Kevin Spacey as Bukingham was perfectly appropriate and fun to watch. And as for Pacino, now I can't read the play without imagining him as Richard. If you're not really into reading, go and watch Looking For Richard. Wonderful work!

With what seems to be inadvertent coherence, film is both a performance of selected scenes of William Shakespeare's Richard III and a broader examination of Shakespeare's continuing role and relevance in popular culture. The movie guides the audience through the play's plot and historical background.Pacino plays both himself and the title character, making it an absolute essential for fans of Al Pacino, people like me, who cannot get enough of the guy's presence. His energy is infectious, his spirit is enviable.Combines crowd-pleasing with the widespread cultural turn-off Americans have with the challenge of Shakespeare. What an incredible cause. Kids seeing this film first may well end up with a better understanding of the Bard's work, because Pacino has made an informative, engrossing and hugely enjoyable movie that stands as a work of pure entertainment as powerfully as its inspiration, the very mixture he intends to apply to complicated historical potboilers like Richard III. And he does not condescend the masses by focusing entirely on the negligent view of Shakespeare as obligation. Stars who turn to directing rarely or never do things like this.

This is Al Pacino's first movie in which he both directed and acted. We see here that Pacino is not only an actor who takes part mostly in movies about gangsters, but within his brain he carries a perfect director. Looking for Richard is definitely what he really wanted to make; unlike the movies he is well-known to act in, it is an unusual combination of both a documentary and a drama based on a classic Shakespeare work. And Pacino made a wonderful choice in working this way. There are many versions of this Richard III story, both taking place in medieval Britain - as was the original script was - and in different places and times, like in the 19th century for a change. If he only made a drama or only a documentary, it would be a very usual and even boring thing, as repetitions of the same thing, even if it is pleasant, becomes annoying with time. This is definitely the best movie ever made, but was not a hit, because it can be understood only by a minority of people - I'll be a bit arrogant here, but I think I am right - above a certain IQ and cultural level.