This movie is superbly written and has some of the best dialogue I've ever experienced on film. The sudden editing and lighting changes were rather obtrusive at times, but overall, it's a bloody good film!!!

I honestly think that this is the most realistic movie I have ever seen in my entire life. I understand how a lot of people want movies to be realistic and this fits the bill perfectly. I do like it when a lot of movies try to be elaborate and have a lot going on. I still appreciate how a film or any work just plain cuts the bullcrap and presents everything the exact way it's supposed to be. It makes me realize that Wallace Shawn is in three of the best movies I've ever seen in my entire life! Even better, he briefly mentions something being "inconceivable", an interesting line that would become more relevant in his later movie "The Princess Bride". I know it was just a voice, but he was in the "Toy Story" movies.This movie tells the story of two guys who eat in a restaurant and talk. That is all the plot this movie has, seriously. It doesn't matter, because this film just comes off as so real to me. It's just nothing but two guys talking. It may be the best representation of a slice of life story I've ever seen in my whole life. It's even hard for me to even talk about this movie. For me to even mention it, I would probably say the exact same things said in this movie. The film itself even seems like a lengthy movie review itself at times, as they talk about stories and plots.The best conversation is probably when they're talking about the fortune cookies. They talk about what the true value of omens and philosophy in general. Every single person on Earth knows what it's like to eat dinner with someone. This is exactly how it goes out. Only about eleven minutes (or ten percent of the film) takes place outside them talking. I will admit that most people generally don't take that long to eat. Then again, I know talkative people. Please see one of the most sincere movies ever made! ****

I decided to see this film many years ago after it received two thumbs up on the first Ebert- Siskel movie review show. I have always enjoyed conversation and watching the two men here share experiences from different orientations and life experiences kept my attention from beginning to end. The men are polar opposites. One is quite rich and has travelled the world, not just observing but participating. As we pass through his experiences (he does most of the talking) we begin to feel an emptiness, a kind of sadness in him. It's as if he thought there were answers out there that would meet his expectations and they never materialized. Wallace Shawn, a man of great accomplishment in his own right, is the frumpy guy who approaches life in a practical, realistic way. He is the perfect foil and yet his fragility is there on his sleeve. He speaks for us, the viewers, while marveling at the stories his friend tells. He hearkens to his own existence which, while not earth shattering, is one of groundedness. I may need to watch this again soon.

Philosophy, existentialism, transcendentalism all collide over quail dinner. Some may see this movie as a time-suck, when in fact it's not, it's compelling and lets the viewer feel as if he's dining at the next table, listening in on something beyond the normal dinner conversation. There's no question as to how anybody else on the screen or talked about feels, it's simply two men having conversation, and that conversation ends up being exceptionally colorful and deep and full of crap at times, but never boring.For the first quarter, it feels as if Andre's existentialist dilemmas are so farcical and ridiculous that they must be pretense, yet once the infinitely-traveled (both the world and the being) Andre calls his own behavior out as abhorrent, things flip on their ear and get your attention.Wally and Andre agree and disagree on the nature of (then-modern) life within the same breaths, rarely exposing anything other than a friendly listening ear, hardly daring to show conflict as that would be outrageous in a conversation such as this between these two people.Some of what Andre says about the fundamentals of society have been proved prescient when a trip on the bus has the majority of riders interacting only with their phones, never truly communicating or living with those people around them. In that way, it's impossible 33 years later not to view truths in the wild stories being told by a man who may not be as nuts as he seems at times, but definitely has let his enlightenment cloud his ability to actually live his life. Yet time after time, we are faced with the very real possibility that Andre's crisis comes from losing his mother, an event which comes up over and over in tales - or maybe he's right on track, and using that event only as a stinging example of the blind men describing the elephant.Wally meanwhile plays the polite ear for a time, then a sounding board, finally even making counterpoints to a much more "here and now" life, but he never fully gives himself over to fighting his friend's ideas, and he rarely shows a hint that he might be bored or glazing over. The fact that Wally, our "protagonist" - if that's what you can call his role - refuses to disengage with Andre the way so many of their friends have shows a kindness and an ability to truly take in the ideas behind a man seemingly broken and on the fringes of society.I remember overhearing talk like this when I was a kid, some of those conversations were the best ideas and some were the absolute worst dreck. How they were used ended up being where their true value mattered, and this film touches on that, but doesn't force it down the viewer's throat. By the end of the few hours, the viewer is a little exhausted, the voice-over narration bookends feel clumsy, but - despite a lack of answers or anything of that nature - something happened and because of that, the viewer felt. That's where entertainment and art must collide to be successful. Part of me would love to find out how Andre's wife and children, how Wally's girlfriend, how their theater community friends, even how the waitstaff dealt with the repercussions of that conversation, there are a lifetime of ideas that have come and gone since this film was made, a near-total abandonment of the type of "self-examination at all costs" behavior Andre lives by in the film, so in that way the film leaves us with the possibility of going anywhere we want, viewing sequels in our own minds. That's a strong tale told then, a movie that's just two New Yorkers having dinner being so much more without pushing at all.Some audiences, perhaps most, won't be able to take this film in. It is longwinded and "nothing happens", it doesn't even entirely look good at times, but where it succeeds is in engaging far beyond the audience's expectations without anything other than some dinner, conversations, and coffee.