Best movie of this year hands down!

People are voting emotionally.

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I can legitimately say that Noises Off is one of my favorite movies of all time. If you have never seen it, be prepared for what you're about to experience. The first time I watched this with my extended family we were all crying with laughter.It takes a few minutes to get going. The first act is funny in its own right. It has lots of well-written lines, the "play within the play" is enjoyable and it lays the necessary groundwork for what is to come: the second and third acts. And even with all that preparation, when that second act gets rolling and everything starts to go wrong, the laughs absolutely do not stop. The physical comedy in this movie is sublime: tightly choreographed and timed to perfection. Every actor has a great part to play. My personal favorite has to be John Ritter's character. All of his "you know"s and "I don't know"s kill me. Michael Caine and Carol Burnett are also standouts. But every cast member gets laughs, and for good reason. There are so many quotable lines from this movie. I think my sister and I could literally quote 75% of this movie. There are a couple of dings that I have to mention. The framing narrative, with its rushed "happy ending" on Broadway, wasn't in the original play and feels totally out of place. After you've watched it 20+ times you may want to fast forward to the second act. But even so, Noises Off is a hidden 90's classic. Highly recommended.

I actually saw a live performance of this in Summer Stock which I found slightly better than the film because ALL the performers were American rather than as here, a hybrid with Caine and Elliott representing the Old Country and Americans sounding mostly unconvincing as Brits. The work itself is solid and constructed to within an inch of its life but it's undeniable that once blue-eyed boy Bogdanovich hit into a triple play after starting off with great promise and this is one of his also-rans - there is not, for example, a bigger Cole Porter fan walking the planet than yours truly but Bogdanovich's 'At Long Last Love' was, if anything, more execrable than 'It's DeLovely'. On the other hand this does preserve a fine sub-Feydeau farce on celluloid.

I remember seeing a 'classic' British theatrical comedy as a teenager in London, 'No Sex Please We're British' in the late 1970's and my vague recollection was it was rather good fun and despite the farcical nature of the play; usually an anathema to a cynical 14 year old; I laughed. More than once. The live action added so much to the experience. 'Noises Off' is a film about the staging of a similar production but we get to see the farce behind the farce. Or at least that appears to be the intention. Unfortunately I did not laugh once. I smirked and appreciated the talents of the actors involved. The cast is on the whole pretty good (Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Denholm Elliott, Julie Hagerty, Marilu Henner, Mark Linn-Baker, Christopher Reeve, John Ritter, Nicollette Sheridan, Kate Rich) and all involved do a more than passable job with the script. This comment may appear contradictory to the overall summary I have given, but I am truly baffled as to the "tears of laughter", "you'll laugh from beginning to end", "I could not stop laughing during the entire movie!", " Completely hysterical!" and other hyperbole used by many of the 'critics' on this site about this film.I can see how the original theatrical production would have worked as a live performance and the complexity of action would have been very funny on the stage. But as a film? While it is indeed a well written piece of theatre, as a comedy film, it looses so much in translation, it just isn't that good. So, worth seeing? Yes - but do not expect too much. If you buy this DVD, on a comedy scale, expect it to be amusing at best.

I was lucky enough to catch the Broadway production of NOISES OFF in the 1980s with Dorothy Louden, Paxton Whitehead, and Linda Thornton (yes, "Tara King" from THE AVENGERS), and enjoyed the weird construction of the deconstruction of a farce in three acts. I have to say that Michael Frayne's play was wonderful at showing the difficulties of producing a farce (in this case a third rate one), and the toll of repetitive performances and back-stage relationships have on the production crew and cast. Frayne thought of everything. At revivals now I don't know if they include it, but in my copy of the PLAYBILL, Frayne inserted a fake PLAYBILL giving the idiotic careers of the stars of the show and the director and his crew. It was as funny as the show was.Farce is at once the most popular form of theater and it's most difficult. To work properly everything must be timed and in place for the sequences to fall into clockwork like movements to the conclusion. All countries produce them. France produced a master of them in Georges Feydeau (see HOTEL PARADISO). But the British love them and at their best they occupy much of the West End and the major theaters in the rest of the isles. Frayne, of course, having his background in the theater is aware of this. But he is also aware of the worse part of it - that because of the popularity of the form too many hacks put their poor wits to it, and really make it tiresome.Such is the case with this particular farce in NOISES OFF (Frayne purposely gives it the name NOTHING'S ON as a counterpoint to the title of the actual play). From the beginning (when the cast are being directed by Lloyd Fellowes (Michael Caine)) we are gradually being aware that the author of NOISES OFF demolished a key portion of the play's plot to explain an additional confusion and twist in it (it explains why one character has to be disguised as an Arab sheik in the play - but now that bit of business is meaningless). There are also split second timing problems that increasingly mangle the jokes and situations due to backstage bickering. Watch for Carol Burnett's performance as the the housekeeper. As the play goes through more and more disastrous rehearsals and productions Burnett's Mrs. Clackett is slowly having a nervous breakdown over the word "sardine".Frayne has sexual interrelationships backstage between the lead players (Burnett, Chris Reeve, Marilu Henner, John Ritter, Nicolette Sheridan) as well as the production staff (Caine, Mark Linn-Baker, Julie Haggerty) create so much confusion and poison as to threaten the very health of the audience (Caine at one point hearing call after call over the theaters intercom system that the curtain will be rising in five minutes runs backstage announcing the incipient panic among the elderly retirees watching the play). Add to all this Desmond Elliot (in one of his last roles) playing the critical role in the farce of a burglar (who is supposed to end up in bed with Burnett) is a happy alcoholic who constantly misses his cues and proper entrance points (particularly if he has another fast one before going on). At one point Caine, Linn-Baker, and Elliot end on stage in the same role at the same time, reciting the same lines to the other performers!The play is destined for Broadway in five months. Will it survive the road tryouts? Will the cast and crew survive without killing each other off? Watch this very funny film to find out.