Critic Reviews

Factotum is so sly and low-key hilarious that anybody can be in on the joke.

Factotum, for all its grim grind, is funny-serious, and smart-stupid. Just like you after four beers, and me after eight.

Bukowski had a bunch of none too kind things to say about “Barfly" upon its release in the 80s, but, with Factotum, he'd do plenty of bitching and moaning as well, but deep down, Hank would approve.

This is also an acidly funny work, even if the humor is that of a man who drinks to stave off the pain and madness of sobriety. In his finest performance since "Drugstore Cowboy," Dillon plays Chinanski with funereal grandiosity.

Like the film itself, Mr. Dillon’s performance works through understatement.

The result is a surprisingly satisfying film, true to Bukowski and itself, a work that manages to make the man and his profane world more palatable without compromising on who he was and what he stood for.

The beautiful joke of Factotum is that Dillon is nobility itself.

The film looks great on the screen, and Hamer has commissioned a terrific musical score from Kristin Asbjornsen, who has set a few of Bukowski's poems to haunting, jazzy music.

Each scene stumbles onto a detail of inspired absurdity or a crunchy bite of dialogue that encapsulates Chinaski's weird flavor of self-destruction.

In a medium generally about action and momentum, Factotum is largely concerned with inaction and inertia.