He is a very poor actor. His acting in this film was exact the opposite of his natural talent playing with his violin, maybe the worst ever actor I've ever seen so far. This film was also doomed and suffered from a very bad screenplay at the very beginning. The only thing that was so out of the world in this film was his crazy talent with the violin. You should watch and enjoy what he did in this film with his music but not his acting which in fact, was just terrible.

We did not hold out much hope for this after reading the reviews. Gratefully, the reviews, as they are quite often, were, in my opinion, wrong. It is beyond me how these negative reviews make it past the smell test. The performance of the music was as visually captivating as it was sonically beautiful. The acting was more than passable and the direction was as good as any. Anyone with slightest knowledge of Paganini, or anyone who bothered to even look up his name on wikipedia, would understand that this movie summarized his life with artistic license. The story itself was a composite of real events, failures and triumphs. In short, if critics loved Amadeus ( truly pitiful depiction of reality with hyperbolic acting antics throughout) and hate this movie, then I will never fathom their trade.

They took the work of a genius and turned it into a mediocre movie. Bad acting particularly by the Paganini character with his cringe making, bland American accent. The writing and direction were just plain awful, I have seen better 30 second advertisements. If you enjoy the music of Paganini this movie is something to avoid. Some musical moments, mostly singing appeared as rays of sunshine through an overclouded sky. The characters were entirely one dimensional and quite unbelievable with poor acting and dreadful dialogue. No surprise then that the director was also the writer, and I will avoid any work of his I come across. Needless to say, any similarity between Paganini's life and this movie is purely coincidental. Even as just entertainment this is a boring, clichéd movie-don't waste your time watching.

This can be seen as a parable, as a story that does ring true for any artist. Being good at something might not be enough. You might need a little help to push you over a certain edge/line, to become what you always dreamt you can (or could) be. Or main character is not exactly someone we might fall in love in (not sexually that is, just liking him is proving difficult most of the time).But there are reasons he acts (plays) the way he does. There is certain downfalls that befall a person that is easily deceived. Or had a certain tendency to be too full of themselves. Of course there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. The question is if one can reach that end of the tunnel ... A nice movie that could have tried to tell a bit more, than it actually does. As it is, it's a decent movie with fine performances.