Expected more

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The name of Francis Ford Coppola is always sufficient to make me want to see the movie. Having directed back in the 70s what are considered to be some of the best films in the history of cinema, Coppola seems to make esoteric choices in the last few years, exploring cinema and geographical territories (Argentina, Romania) a little aside from the main Hollywood track, enrolling international casts (and of course, almost no actor would lose an opportunity to work with him). Tetro seems to be his best film in the last decade, an American family saga set in South America, a drama that touches the artistic milieu and brings up hidden and murky family ties.On the way Coppola does not miss the opportunity to make music, ballet, opera in film. All the characters in the family are in the shade of an oppressive and egocentric father, obsessed with his career of world famous conductor (Klaus Maria Brandauer of whom I never have enough). The elder son (excellent acting from Vincent Gallo) is a playwright and lights director who has his own reasons to stop his artistic career, the younger character (Alden Ehrenreich reminding young Leonardo Di Caprio) starts as a steward apprentice to end as a stage director. Maribel Verdu as the elder brother's girlfriend completes a triangle of fine acting.All the action turns around family ties and secrets, around art as a goal in life and as an excuse for bad behavior. I am often complaining about the length of the American films (and not only American) and I will do it again, and again not because of the number of minutes by itself, but because the ten extra-minutes at the end turn the strong family drama into melodrama, and this seemed to me unnecessary.The cinematography signed by the young Romanian cinematographer Mihai Malaimare jr. The black and white colors used for most of the film with the colored flashbacks give a stylish and expressive touch to the viewing experience. Much of the charm and pleasure viewers have from watching this film derives from the camera work.

This film conceived, written, produced and directed by the renowned Francis Ford Coppola is empty and pointless. There are good performances, good cinematography, and directorial skills are in evidence. But why bother? Yes, there is atmosphere. But it is dark and depressing. The story has a germ of an idea to it, but what has happened to Coppola's writing abilities? He has in the past written such important screenplays. I suggest that Francis has nothing to say at the moment. Let us hope that his situation will improve, that he will pull himself together, and find something interesting and worthwhile to say. He is also in danger of becoming pretentious, possibly because he has been praised too much and for too long and is starting to believe in it. Waiting for him to recover from this is a bit too much like imagining Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for (Jean-Luc) Godard'.

Francis Ford Coppola returns to film school, per se, and is a triple threat as writer, producer and director for this independent black and white study of two brothers: one a brooding "genius", Vincent Gallo as Tetro; the other, Alden Edrenreich as Bennie, a youthful dud who, staying with brother and his girlfriend, yearns to complete Tetro's play-in-progress, scrawled in notebooks and only meant as cathartic exercise for the author. This same thing can be said of the film: obviously heartfelt and soul-owned by Coppola, it all comes across as pretentious and, despite a pretty good twist-ending, somewhat liken to CHINATOWN, this is a muddled, plodding, overlong mess that, if it were in fact a student (short) film at twenty minutes, might have been interesting. The location, Buenos Aries, is beautiful, as is the cinematography. But the characters are all one-sided, especially the famous composer father, shown in colorized flashbacks: so abundantly evil he should have a thin little mustache. Vincent Gallo looks, and acts, the part of a dark-horse artist; but Edrenriech lacks the blunt determination that, for instance, Matt Dillon (originally cast as Tetro) wielded as the little- bro-under-big-bro's-shadow in Coppola's eighties venture RUMBLE FISH, which this is a ponderous replica of.

A young boy Bennie comes to Buenos Ayres to meet his older brother who ran from New York long time ago. To his surprise Bennie finds out that he is unwelcome. The present is shown in black and white but flashbacks are in colour – they are shown to us as if characters watch films of their past on a small screen, many flashbacks are superb ballet scenes. Everything goes excellently and I thought that Francis Ford Coppola made another great drama but in the last six minutes or so he managed to spoil everything with incongruent razzamatazz so all the movie began to look like a fraud. And by the way the novel they were writing judging by the fragments is crap.