Hey, I like Robert Duvall, and have been a face of his since the mid 1960s. However, this film is nothing more then Duvall's tribute to his Argentine wife, who he met and later married. He is so in love with a woman 41 years younger than himself and her Tango dancing skills, that he spends countless time showing people dancing Tango. He should of made a 30 minute video on Tango, instead of surrounding a nothing story around the dance. A hit man in Argentina falls in love with the Tango. Tango is presented as "Life". Nothing is more important than dancing Tango, drinking whiskey and smoking. And Mr. Duvall as the leading man in an action film just doesn't go over. He's a senior citizen with a pony tail and a wife young enough to be his grand-daughter. Hey! more power to him! Let him use this excuse for a artistic film as a home movie.

I have a huge respect for Robert Duvall. We've had the luck of watching his career - from The God Father to The Great Zantini, to The Apostle. Here is is the star, film script author and director and it is obviously a work of great love. You can feel how much he appreciates the art of tango, not just tango but going to the root of tango, going to Argentina for the 'real thing' how wonderful. The film has a gentleness, even though it is a thriller, it has a rhythm, a sensuality because it centers around the beautiful movement of the tango. The dancing is gorgeous - and reminds me in part of TANGO by Carlos Saura and of course Sally Potter's THE TANGO LESSON. This film belongs to that category of art films based on the tango.Congratulations to Robert Duvall and to Executive Producer, Francis Ford Coppola for bringing this film to the screen. Enjoy

One of the things that draws me to Duvall's movies, especially as he has aged, is the realism he tries to inject. Shrek's explanation of being layered like an onion is true of us all, we are not one thing but many. Think of his movie characters from the 15 years and remember the characters that talk to themselves, that repeat themselves in a sort of sing-song cadence, that are hot tempered; he plays reflections of himself. It has been almost 10 years since this movie was released and I still remember a short interview he did from his home in support of the movie. He knew it wasn't going to do well commercially, but he had discovered the intricacies, the balance, the practice required to do it correctly and fell in love with the Tango and wanted to expose it to others. There is a line in the movie that you are never too old to learn, I'm sure he interjected that because he discovered the Tango in his 60's and dances it to this day. The dialog isn't wired tight, nor is the plot; his dispatchment to Buenos Aries for a hit seems contrived at best (they couldn't find a local?) but it puts him at the birthplace of the Tango and to see the masters at work is lovely. The ending credits are run under a couple dancing outside that is breathtaking. The dialog of mostly normal people having normal conversations to me was one of the strong points of the movie; it is to greater effect than line by line recital although it did occasionally drag down the pace for sure. One of the female characters comments on dancing club Tango versus competitive Tango; one you must concentrate on every move and one you soar with the eagles and enjoy. While watching the movie, I recommend the club Tango.

Robert Duvall's greatness lies in part, on his ability to become the character he's portraying, his identity subsumed in the film. In this movie, unfortunately, he emerges not as a hit man, but as an odd permutation of Harvey Keitel. I found myself wondering exactly "who" I was watching. Discovering after the fact that Duvall wrote the screenplay, all became clear. Actors tend to be empty vessels, filled by a writer's creation...Duvall mistook his acting gifts for writing talent, and produced an interesting glimpse of Buenos Aires' tango world, populated with the road show cast of "Reservoir Dogs". A few viewings of "The Official Story" might have provided better source material for Duvall, although the dialog consistently fails to ring true.