Wonderful character development!

Absolutely amazing

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Too many anachronisms to stomach, it looks like the 1970's instead of the years right after WWII. They did not spend enough money on production to make it believable. I mean, Afros, large sunglasses, modern skyscrapers, modern clothes? Really? The rented steam train does not come close to making up for everything else. That, and the bad acting did it for me. I have never read the book and I wonder if the screenplay is true to it: Flannery O'Connor is an excellent author, I can't believe she wrote it like this. That, and the anti-Christian subtext is very disturbing. My bride and I sat through about thirty minutes before we threw in the towel.

there was a time when such movies weren't made and remained under- noticed for such upbringing of topics and issues but there has always been a wide list of movies that represent the link between religion and the man and WISE BLOOD is that one. this piece got under my viewing on only two grounds (first, it is an adaptation of Connor's novel and second it is john Huston's film) & i should say that it remains as truthful and as lively as the real story is. here, not divulging much of the plot, i will say that if you are going through or gone such incidents where you wanted to know what GOD is actually then this movie will answer some of yours. plus, if you are so much into all that toxic godliness blinded by the real and reality around even then you should see this piece. to end, i must say that all the actors make it genuine and lively otherwise story wouldn't just pierce into your thinking. do make it your definite watch.

A hefty percentage of the comments on "Wise Blood" dwell on its relationship to the novel from which it was drawn -- pro and con. Brilliant faithful adaptation says one moviegoer. Trashy sacrilege screams another. Those of us who haven't read the book are stuck with the movie which balances superb atmosphere with strange storytelling. Let's start on the plus side. John Huston and his crew have caught not only the look but the feel, almost the smell, of a midsize southern town in Summer. The weathered frame houses, the sagging streets, the one-screen cinema, the tired used car lot with its rusty Ford Fairlanes, they form a richly authentic backdrop for the action. That's where "Wise Blood" gets into trouble. Who is Hazel,played by Brad Dourif, what war did he emerge from, why does he want to be a preacher and most of all, why does he suffer psychotic temper tantrums? You'll have to figure that out for yourself -- along with why a would-be acolyte steals an embalmed monkey for him and why the nymphet daughter of a "blind" evangelist is smitten with him, down to her threadbare stockings. Sure, there are allegorical references galore throughout the film. The phoniness of Gonga, the gorilla (a bruiser in an ape suit) matched against the phoniness of street corner preachers. But in the end, maybe you'll say to yourself (but never breathe a word to more ephemeral friends)I just wish the darned thing made more sense.

What other testament to how criminally neglected this film is other than the fact it has a rough 900 votes at the time of writing this? A movie directed by Hollywood titan John Huston of all people. That's not to say WISE BLOOD is not a flawed film, few if any such films exist after all, nor that it has that dramatic wholesomeness and clear and profound characterization that makes something like THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE the classic it is, yet, much like 80's cult paean REPO MAN, it remains endlessly watchable and fascinating in its own demented way.The movie follows the trials and tribulations of Hazel Motes, a young man fresh back from a war (not specified which - any war will do really) somewhere in the deep South who starts out as an angry man who believes in no saviours and no dogmas and dreams of a Church of Christ without Christ and slowly finds himself digressing out of circumstances out of his hand to that which he most loathes. It's not specified to what extent the war changed him as a man or if it did at all but it appears his fundamendalist Christian grandfather (played in a flashback cameo by John Huston hisself) had a larger impact in his formative years than any war trauma.Turning from fierce individualist and hater of preachers to zealous preacher of his own church where there is neither fall, redemption or judgement because there's nothing to fall from and nothing to be redeemed for, and from preacher to self-tormenting repentant, Brad Dourif brings Hazel Motes and his monomaniac pursuit alive on screen with burning passion. Always tense and ready to lash out at everyone and anyone, he's a seething mass of tendons and nerves writhing with agitation.I have not read Flannery O'Connor's original novel nor have I been brought up in a Protestant or Catholic background (or the South for that matter), but there's something captivating about Wise Blood beyond and despite its particular subject matter. That elusive quality that turns a good movie into a haunting one. Still, it's easy to see why it failed to find an audience when it came out and has been largely forgotten ever since. The seriocomic mood is perhaps a bit too incosistent for the viewer who needs to quickly determine what kind of response the movie before him demands. Part religious drama, part road movie, part demented black comedy, part satiric oddity, Wise Blood is as hard to file under a specific label as it is to watch without a reaction. Yet it doesn't fail in any of them, and that's why it's such a bonafide cult film.Blessed with a powerhouse performance by Brad Dourif, enhanced by cameos of such character actor stalwarts as Harry Dean Stanton (in the role of blind preacher) and Ned Beatty (in the role of preacher manager), the picturesque baroque of the American South, and assured direction by venerable Hollywood giant John Huston, Wise Blood, in all its southern Gothic glory, is a cult film crying out to be rediscovered by a new audience.