Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

disgusting, overrated, pointless

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I am a HUGE Dylan fan, but this movie was a train wreck. It was so bad I had to watch it until the end. Kept hoping it would get better. It didn't. Even all the great cast members were flat in their roles. None of them could impart any emotion in their characters. Heck, I couldn't tell if it was a drama or a tongue in cheek comedy. The story line was weak and it was hard to figure out why most of the characters were even in the story line. Guess I'm just not that intellectual like those that gave this a high rating. The reason I gave it 2 stars was for the the music in the film. Which there wasn't enough of to keep me happy. If you have nothing better to do, I recommend that you do watch this flick. It's amazingly awful. Just like a train wreck. Sorry Bob, I've been to at least 10 of your concerts and your music has made me cry tears of joy, but acting is not something you were born to do.

In MASKED AND ANONYMOUS, the 2003 movie by Larry Charles. Bob Dylan plays Jack Fate, a singer who is bailed out of jail (for an unspecified crime) by a couple of promoters, Sweetheart and Nina (John Goodman and Jessica Lange), to play a benefit concert (again unspecified) in an unnamed country. I felt that it was Central American country. Maybe like Nicaragua or Honduras. A dictatorship where the President is on his deathbed and parties are lurking for a takeover. Fate seems to know them all. Fate is hounded by a reporter, Tom Friend (Jeff Bridges) and aided by one of his close friends Bobby Cupid (Luke Wilson). There are various cameos by some rather famous actors, probably friends of Dylan and Charles who just wanted to be a part of the movie. Most of the action takes place in a large convention hall with a stage and a trailer for the 'promoters' , managers and band. Dylan and his band play tunes from his album 'Time Out of Mind' and various others from over the years.I imagined that Larry Charles left it to Bob Dylan to provide dialogue. Well, I felt like this was a memoir, travelogue. Bob Dylan has been around the world a few times, had the ear of and listened to many people, including more than a few politicians. I felt like the characters were composites of these people. Sweetheart and Nina, the business people, Tom Friend the press. The President and and his successor Edmund seemed be the politicians. I bet more than a few asked Dylan's advice. And of course he got to address you and me. And such music! Above all Bob Dylan is a master musician.

Bob Dylan has figured out one important fact: Sing simplistic songs and shut up. People will think you are a genius. Possibly even a God.This movie is a dreadful star vehicle for countless pretentious Hollywood people to tag themselves to the Bob Dylan legend (which is born out of thin air). It seems to me all the professional actors in this are a bunch of desperate direction-less people. Most of them by the way appear to be drunk or high on something else. Sad indeed.Bob is a genius in one single regard - no one has a better grasp on selling himself by NOT doing things.One of the many, many annoying things in this movie is the tendency to trivialize anything that is not "Bob Dylan music" and to turn the entire World into a prop or stooge for the sheer majesty and brilliance that is "Bob Dylan". Why, I would suggest to trademark "Bob Dylan" like some lemonade ... but I think it's already happened. In fact Bob is given a chance to comment on Zappa and Hendrix. They are similar enigmas, so why not take them on in the WWF (Who Writes the best .ucking music).One of the many low points is a black girl singing "Times they are a-changing"... I'm pretty sure this movie was sponsored by some U.N./Unicef/Hollywood conglomerate of detached people living in P.C.-Land.Just watch the scene where Bob and his band are on stage and he sings one trivial line over and over and a carefully selected crop of people from all around the World including by sheer coincidence Gandhi and The Pope stand in awe watching this holy miracle unfold. In one other telling scene in this botch the aforementioned Gandhi and The Pope are sitting side by side but wait ... Who is sitting in between? Why, it's Penelope Cruz! I think that is all you need to know about this piece of horse manure.Of course the movie ends exactly the way it should with Bob rambling about how things don't have to have a meaning etc. etc. etc.

I note that few other reviewers, if any, have connected the title to the movie. It is an apt description and a foretelling. The intentions are masked and anonymous, and it is up to us, the viewers, to unveil our own reality and interpretation of the movie.It is a series of vignettes strung together with and by Dylan, whose character walks through the chaos of the darkly futuristic and collapsed USA, largely unscathed and seemingly unaffected by the pandemonium and violence around him.He serves as a catalyst and MC - an enigmatic music legend who keeps coming back. In other words, he acts like Bob Dylan! Of course, he has a secret, he is the son of the current dictator, seemingly disowned by his father; he is a prince estranged from the land that would be his if he chose. He does not. He neither embraces nor combats it. He exists both below and above it.It has been said that the movie plays like a Dylan song. Perhaps it does. And if so, it will be fluid in meaning, and will change with each viewing and viewer. Not great as a movie, but good as an experience, and a must for Dylan fans.