User Reviews

This 70’s fueled drug trip of a movie is captivating. The screenplay is fantastic with well written characters based off the novel by Thomas Pynchon. The performances by this all star cast are all great, especially from Joaquin Phoenix Josh Brolin, Reese Witherspoon and Owen Wilson. The songs and score featured in this movie are all fantastic and fit the vibe really well. The cinematography captures the hazy and often psychedelic dream-like atmosphere of LA. This movie features a narrative that is out of order but yet draws you in to the mind altering world that Paul Thomas Anderson created. Get ready for a groovy time, when you watch what’s easily now one of my top movies.

I tried really, really hard, I did. But this is seemingly designed to be as impenetrable as possible. You are bombarded, with locations, characters, details, and phrases too quickly. Has its moments with characters and performances but this is not easy to get through.

After the last two fantastic movies such as TWB and The Master, PTA decides to shot this nice movie that is hard to describe but it definitely feels like the smaller brother (or cousin) of Coen "The Big Lebowski" even if it doesn't turn out to be as good as Lebowski is. Anyway it remains an enjoyable movie.

My favourite PTA film. Wasn't sure the first time I saw it, but great films require more than one viewing. The more I watch it the more I want to live in it's world.

PT Anderson never delivers.. THe incoherent dis jointed plot could be forgiven if there was a twist or compelling mystery. Stoners just aren't as interesting as this movie wants them to be

So whats up is I have to go back to this again to find what so talking about it. Initially, I'm just in the back of the arena where the subject is so confusing and it goes in slow, steady mode. I am not able to grasp what the characters are talking about and what's the initiative of Doc. I feel confused about the narration also. Inherent Vice put me into a vacuum and I believe a second watch will put me out from it. That why rate it half out of the whole.

People were laughing half-heartedly in the theatre as if they knew what was going on, if it was funny or not, but really... idk if anyone had a clue what was happening. It was like walking into one of PTA's dreams. Where nothing makes sense, but you just sort of roll with it. But even then, as good as the performances are, as wondrous as the style is and as much as I respect and admire PTA as one of the most contemporary and inspiring artists of the day, Inherent Vice plays more like a background movie at a house party, rather than the sit down and watch engagement of his recent works.

The best I can say of Inherent Vice is that it's The Big Lebowski without the laughs, memorable characters, or charm. In fact, it's more like the demented, Bizarro cousin of The Big Lebowski, where everything good about that film has been twisted into something horrible.

Not PTA's best. I think it was too long - dialogs were not really engaging. Big Lebowski reference is a bit forced. It was painful to watch.

This movie was a little bit hard to follow at the beginning, but once everything started adding up and making sense, you realize how exciting this movie is.

The mythological vocabulary of Anderson wonders me more than it intrigues me, the case might as well be a dead end. Inherent Vice Anderson makes me happy. And Thomas Pynchon, a novelist whose book of the same name is adapted from, makes me frown, provokes me to think. What should a result be when these two sources rain in one project? The result is deliberately dubious, perilous and dazzling. Paul Thomas Anderson, the director, works as a catalyst in the film. For Pynchon is famous for his hefty complex material, Anderson is helping enormously to swallow this pill with as much as style and ease as possible. And this agenda clears his major dilemma of placing the vital plot elements into a coherent narrative arcs. For instance, Aaron Sorkin who writes in a similar heavy language, found difficult to picturize his own script on screen when he decided to direct Molly's Game. Previously he had worked with Martin Scorsese, David Fincher and Rob Reiner whose methods he had to adapt to go through a thick binder of script in around 2 hours. Fortunately, Anderson too, is the best one out there. And with a steady camera he allows you, as a viewer, to sensibly observe from a definite viewpoint. So that the passed on information, the gossip, the whispered secret is consumed properly. In fact, most of the direction follows similar camera work, usually it is panned towards the action with a straight path and a pace similar to the way the story develops. Also, he is focusing on just the heads of these characters that is analysed so thoroughly here. Since he never gives you a wider shot, despite creating a '70s Los Angeles- usually a wider shot is expected and normal to get when a film has created set pieces from a different era- and worked so hard and beautifully on the production and costume design, the cinematography follows close-up shots to direct the narrator, who then directs us. The film has plenty of scenes to cover, from one incident to another and another, I find this method unsettling and irresponsibly in rush for a film. Yet, when Anderson does it, there is awe in his work. Primarily because he threads all these crime scenes with painting like picturization and a sketch like formation- that is to say that each of the scene has an introduction, middle section and a final act to follow- that offers you little wins in every situation. He is also speaking with color and using not just the appealing neon light nature of it, but the contrast and the way it shadows a character. For example, take the first scene itself, where Sashta Fay Hepworth played by Katherine Waterston visits Joaquin Phoenix embodying "The Doc Sportello!" There is never an infusion of the neon blue and dying red color, the line that it meets on remain crisp and clean just like the film's humor. Inherent Vice has a satisfying poignancy that a rare classic offers you.

Watching inherent vice is like reading a book, but your not reading it your basically watching it... youth movement in the United States during the early 1960s. and in my opinion i can't name a better film than "Inherent vice" that can give you a vision of what was actually going on. 

It was a near perfect movie. The acting was excellent, the humour was on point, the story, although a little bit cliché, was still interesting and enjoyable and the movie was overall very entertaining. I said near perfect because it does have it's defaults. The movie dragged a little bit during the middle, there was a cruel lack of violence for this kind of movie and the story was confusing. But, all in all, it was still a great watch.

To deepen over Inherent Vice is too much and I think that I would go deeper if knew more about the novel, but to avoid wandering more I conclude that this is a work of author in levels that few can try to dream to reach, Paul Thomas Anderson continues being shown as a filmmaker away from the mainstream and continues to deliver different works, very well done works and with Inherent Vice he adds another gem to his filmography.

I usually never said that a peformance can save a movie, but in this case, Joaquin phoenix really saves the movie (just a little) His performance is spectacular, maybe is the not so good performances around him that makes him shine but Phoenix really deserved an academy award nomination for best actor for saving a film that is highly overated (i´ve only see that in the case of some Meryl Streep movies) The movie greatest issue, is that in the fisrt half hour, the movie gives us a plot, which is good, then it give us another one, and then another and another and another. It makes us feel like we´re seeing a lot of short films united in one with Joaquin´s character in every of them. At the end of the movie, you know that something happened, something really big, but you don´t know what.

A book like Thomas Pynchon's "Inherent Vice", with its mix of zany characters, offbeat humor, and intelligently convoluted plot meant for serious readers, was made for Paul Thomas Anderson to adapt. It compliments his style in every way imaginable while he still manages to bring original vision and flair to the project. Try to follow me through the summary, if you can dig it. Larry "Doc" Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix, in his second collaboration with Anderson) is a stoner hippie PI living in Los Angeles, riding out the tail end of the psychedelic '60s, when his ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katharine Waterson) shows up with a far-out story about a plan by the wife of her current billionaire land developer boyfriend (Eric Roberts) and the wife's boyfriend to get him committed as part **** rich quick scheme. Groovy. Along the way Doc picks up a couple more cases, and in the process butts heads with local law enforcement (Josh Brolin), the FBI, and **** bikers working as bodyguards for the aforementioned land developer. Also, there's a missing saxophonist-turned-undercover government agent played by Owen Wilson, who screams profanity at Nixon in a scene that I wish could have actually been featured on TV. What a head trip. As can always be expected from a movie adaptation of a novel some trimming has been done, as several larger supporting side characters were reduced to bit parts or completely cut out (as was the case for a Vegas trip taken by Doc with the on-and-off GF of a buddy of the **** biker he's paid to seek out by a member of the Black Panthers), but overall Anderson succeeds in staying true to the story and capturing the essence of the era depicted in the novel. Paranoia and mistrust are abundant as evidenced both by Doc's interactions with the Feds and with Brolin's character, Detective Lieutenant Christian F. "Bigfoot" Bjornsen (yes, that is his full name, but Bigfoot is the only important part), and the lead characters always seem so hard-assed or perpetually dazed it makes you wonder if people in the '60s were truly as hard-line as they are in this film: out of their mind on drugs nearly every hour of the day or straight-laced with their nose so high they'd drown in a rainstorm. Without such a talented cast in both the lead and supporting roles, this movie would have undoubtedly been exponentially more difficult to make. Phoenix nails the role of Sportello with such a flawless grace that you'd think he was like that all the time; Brolin manages to make the character of Bigfoot both hilarious and threatening at the same time (there's a scene representing the best of both worlds where Bigfoot beats the snot out of Doc in front of a rookie cop outside the land developer's house), and Waterson, in making her character so secretive and mysterious makes her all the more seductive, and we're glad for it. The supporting cast ranges from all-stars (Benicio Del Toro, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, Reese Witherspoon, Martin Donovan) to newcomers (Jordan Christian Hearn, Hong Chau, etc.), and it's so delightful to see both familiar faces and fresh ones co-existing together instead of fighting for the spotlight. That, plus a fitting soundtrack from Radiohead guitarist and another frequent Anderson collaborator Jonny Greenwood, makes the ride all the more enjoyable. In short, there's no easy way to describe this movie; perhaps the best way is to imagine if "Up in Smoke" and "Pulp Fiction" met by chance late one night, went back to one of their apartments, and made sweet music 'til sunrise. This is truly a great movie; the humor and intelligence keeping you either doubled over on the floor or on your toes trying to anticipate its next move (you're out of your chair either way) makes for an addicting watching experience, and continues the tradition of PT Anderson's excellence in his craft. 9/10

I randomly chose this movie on HBO Go, and much to my delight, could not stop watching. Joaquin is nothing short ****, his facial expressions, physical reactions and acting are superb. The movie is mysteriously funny, off-kilter but Immensely relatable. I was drawn into a time and place brought about by superior acting, writing and directing. My hat is off to Anderson, despite some negative reviews, which by the way, are totally undeserving.

With "Inherent Vice," we see yet another product of director Paul Thomas Anderson's ever-vivid post-There-Will-Be-Blood trot into the realm of the experimental narrative. Granted, the film is an adaptation of the eponymous novel from Thomas Pynchon, it still feels as though the notoriously elusive author specifically wrote this story with Anderson's eventual film in mind. It has a brow-furrower of a plot, some double-take-worthy moments of lunacy, and an utterly odd feel to it overall that should please PTA die hards. For me, though, it just didn't quite hit me as squarely in the chest as I was expecting and I'm not really sure I enjoyed the overall experience. And though I'm in no way off the PTA fandom express, I may be slightly inclined to worry for the man's health. Slightly.

"WTF is going on in this movie?" this is the only thing that I kept thinking, its like the screenwriters were just as doped as the charecters portraid. It has good acting and filming, but I had no clue whatsoever

Inherent Vice is a pretty hilarious movie about... Something. I'm not entirely sure what, but that might well be the point. It's like a patchwork of random moments flitting in and out of existence. Lay back, switch off and just let the film wash over you like a clambake haze and good times are a certainty.

When I started watching the movie, it looked promising... but after the first half hour, my stomach started to turn and I realized I was watching a really, really bad movie. The relationships that this character has with other characters aren't well-developed (or developed at all), so you spend most of the movie watch the main character having wacky interactions with other characters, with no understanding of what's at stake, why their dynamic is what it is and why it seems that the emotions/behavior of the characters has no connection to what's happening in the story. Another thing is that behavior of these characters... I have no idea why, but at a certain point, the movie devolves into a wacky cartoon... it's as if someone realized the movie was a steaming pile of crap and thought that acting wacky would somehow entertain the audience.

Clever and complex script populated by very bizarre characters led up by Doc Sportello played very well by Joaquin Phoenix. All the supporting players are very good as well and it's directed with a certain hypnotic rhythm that tunes in well with the overall theme of hallucinogenic drug use that runs throughout. It's a very strange trip through 1970"s California and not for everyone’s taste.

What a horribly boring film. I could feel myself age minute by excruciating minute. I tried to bear with it, with its cameos by A/B-list celebs but Phoenix's character was uninteresting along with the grit of the early '70s in Calif. It smacks of a straight-to-tv movie they used to feed the public back then. ****.time.

If you'd have asked me to rate this the first time I saw it, it would've been around a 3 or a 4. It was very hard to keep up with the convoluted plot. I personally don't know who could've ever kept up with it! But then I gave it another viewing, just going with it (as many sites and reviewers have suggested), and I loved it! The atmosphere is wonderful and it feels like it came straight out of the 70s. I noticed a lot I never noticed before and some of the movie is just plain silly (in a good way; silly dialogue). I definitely recommend this movie, just enjoy it for the aesthetics and laughs rather than trying to remember everything that goes on and every named mentioned (or you won't enjoy it). Then again I haven't read the book either, but I'm intrigued to do so now. Also, I wouldn't compare this in any way to The Big Lebowski.. It's nothing like it. There's really nothing like this movie. It's definitely neat and original.

This movie **** c**ks alright! Apart from Joaquim Phoenix brilliant performance - like he always do - this movie is a disaster. I can't remember watching such a long, dull and confusing movie since I don't know when, and it looks almost impossible it was made by the same guy who did the very good " There will be Blood". Safe to say I'll never touch a book written by Thomas Pynchon...

Possibly PTA's worst film, but...still a good film. It is a bit long, and slow at times. Maybe the director wanted to create the feeling of being high ? I don't know. Its also very hard to follow along as many key plot points are said in low tones or a whisper. You need to be ready to pay attention but there is some humor and I love the 70's nostalgia, and the plot is all over the place. (Keeps it interesting despite the slow pace at times.)

Much like any Paul Thomas Anderson film, this will grow on you. I've come to trust this director after having seen The Master and There Will Be Blood, (Punch-Drunk Love too). If he makes the film then I know there's something worth investigating here. I took my time with this film and watched it multiple times - letting it play even while I fall asleep sometimes. The comedy is rather strong and Brolin and Phoenix give stellar portrayals of their respective archetype. Brolin (brawny cop with a soft side, perhaps) gives off this hilarious anger that he lets loose occasionally, and Phoenix (peace and love private investigator) is very easy-going while peering at the information he gathers through a cloud of marijuana smoke. The one thing that will make his character tick though - Shasta Fay. This film, like anything PTA, must be watched more than once.

Before watching Paul Thomas Anderson's latest labour-of-love, I am quite puzzled how come this film hovered under the radar almost entirely in the past Oscar season, since PTA is pretty much in his heyday both in his career path and artistic creativity after THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007, 9/10) and THE MASTER (2012) , with only two minor Oscar nominations (Adapted Screenplay and Costume Design), its box office journey is also underperformed, a meagre $8 million after its domestic run. keep reading my review on my blog, please google: cinema omnivore, thanks!

This is the worst possible kind of time-wasting DVD ... the cast & quirks are good enough that you can't watch while multitasking, yet the loose mumbling & vague plot are just not that interesting. Joaquin Phoenix wears the same expression on his mutton-chop mug throughout, that of a clueless Wolfman Jack. He's supposedly a private investigator, but he never seems to have a case (or means of support?) and never investigates anything except the fate & whereabouts of his ex-girlfriend. There are smatterings of "L.A. Confidential" -- minus the wrenching emotion -- and some droll & delightful turns by an excellent supporting cast. Honestly glad when this meandering thing was over, though.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

If The Big Lebowski had been a two-part episode of The Rockford Files, it would have been Inherent Vice. Except, it would have been a lot better than Inherent Vice.

I didn't expect to like Inherent Vice but now I'm in love with it. The cinematography and story-line are so organic that they feel familiar and homey.

If you want to watch a mindless feel good than don't watch PT Anderson or read Thomas Pynchon. The title itself is difficult to understand (look at what the term actually means) and you'll understand a bit of what Thomas Pynchon is trying to say. Does the movie do the book justice? Hells ya. Would I watch this movie without reading the book? Hells no.

What the hell did i just watch, a thriller? comedy? action movie? well i don't give a damn, got bored like a huskey, and wasted 2 hours of my boring life. I don't even know how to explain what this movie is about, because i didn't understand s**t. Maybe i should've been stoned to enjoy it, but i doubt it.

Sortilège: "Coming just in time for Christmas." Inherent Vice is about a private eye Doc Sportello's ex-old lady suddenly out of nowhere shows up with a story about her current billionaire land developer boyfriend whom she just happens to be in love with, and a plot by his wife and her boyfriend to kidnap that billionaire and throw him in a looney bin...well, easy for her to say. It's the tail end of the psychedelic `60s and paranoia is running the day and Doc knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," that's being way too overused - except this one usually leads to trouble. With a cast of characters that includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, LAPD Detectives, a tenor sax player working undercover, and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists... Part surf noir, part psychedelic romp. With Paul Thomas Anderson films that I've seen so far like: Boogie Nights, There will be Blood, The Master and Magnolia. I haven't seen he's other films yet, but the films that I have seen from him I can say that Paul Thomas Anderson is a fantastic film maker that always have these beautiful shots in his movies that always stick with me after the movie is over... so what happened here?. This isn't at all a bad movie, I mean I am giving it a 2 and a half out of 4 stars for god sake. I also give The Master the same rating but that film is slowly started to grow on me, but Inherent Vice just left me standing with nothing really knocking me off my feet with anything brilliant or anything like that. Joaquin Phoenix in this movie feels like his right at home when it comes to films like this, and once again he just knocks it out of the park in this movie. Phoenix can do a Oscar worthy performance in his sleep that how good of a actor he is and in this he dose he's usual stuff of awesomeness. I already went on about his performance for the past two years now and wow I haven't even reviewed a movie and never said "Phoenix was the worse part of that film", it's always the good stuff I always bring up, so yeah Joaquin Phoenix dose a excellent and believable performance has Sportello (Or the little Hippie that he always been called in this movie). The other actors in the movie: Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon and Benicio Del Toro all do a fantastic job in they roles, and the other actors that I didn't name do good to. Heck nobody didn't do a god awful performance in this movie, it's all good. The directing from Paul Thomas Anderson I would compare it like The Master in some way has those two films have the same looking shots and Phoenix acting crazy like he did in that other film. Anderson directed this movie pretty good, but I don't know if it's him or not but I think these a lot of scenes that drag like hell and the movie felt kind of messy at parts. It may sound like a complain and well I'm kind of am, but besides all that he directed the movie pretty good of what he had. Now for the problems: Has I said before the movie felt kind of messy at parts and I don't know if it's just me or it's really hard to follow the movie, because it goes by so slow and so quick as well that I didn't know what was going on at times. The movie can be really and I do mean really boring, and that's just a real shame because I tried and tried to like this movie and tried to enjoy it, but I won't lie the movie really did bored me, and this is coming from a guy who wanted this to be fantastic. Inherent Vice has to be my least favorite Paul Thomas Anderson film yet. The movie may have it's good parts, but the movie dose have it's cracks and boy do they show.

While PTA has been in a somewhat slump (compared to his other films) recently, Inherent Vice is still fun to watch if you know what you getting into. The Performances, production design, and costumes are amazing, and the aesthetic really gives off the '70s vibe. However, the plot is disjointed, the cinematography is a bland, and the dialogue mainly consists of two characters talking about another character that is elsewhere. Overall, it is fun to watch if you are a PTA fan, or know what you are getting into.

This is the worst crap i've seen in 33 years. I'd rather watch AVP2 10 times in a row than ever have to watch this again. It's boring, slow, not funny, confusing, and without a sense of direction, typical of Paul Anderson latest stuff. But the worse of it all is that it's crowed with A-List actors, and not one, except for Joaquin, can add up anything that's worthwhile. It's crap, crap, crap....

Epic surreal movie, fun and rare with a perfectly cast and a awesome direction the soundtrack is great , the perfect adaptation of a Pynchon Novel--.

Not stupid or pretentious enough to even waste time seeing this. If you're not onto this sham of a director and his complete lack of talent and story-telling ability, then you deserve what you get. He's a writer who doesn't outline or have any respect whatsoever for the audience. He is anti-audience, anti-Hitchcock, anti-structural coherence. Self indulgent prima donna that never bothers with endings much less what leads up to one. Yet it gets an 81 from critics on here just showing the very unreliable nature of this site's worthiness and worse just how pompous, out of touch, and just plain stupid most film critics are these days. Boycott their reviews, write in demanding their firings, etc. Anything to get the jackasses out.

A truly extraordinary movie, a time-capsule of the social war between hippies and straights in the late 60s and early 70s. The dialog is incredible, sharp and quite often hilarious. Bits of craziness thrown in emphasise the free-spirits, and the anal establishment. The plot is incomprehensible mostly, just like living then. If you watch and remember carefully, the 80% of red-herrings eventually drift away, the avalanche of new information becomes a kind of fireworks festival of noise and colour. Joaquin Phoenix is almost a pinball bouncing around the plot and settings. Amazing performances throughout, almost surreal. A Triumph!

Ten minutes in, I think this is a brilliant movie. An hour later, I am frustrated by the choices the Director has made; an hour later I wonder why this story was told at all; it seems designed to annoy and frustrate the **** much as I tried to appreciate "The Master", I now feel that the Director is way too focused on style over substance, and the storytelling of "Boogie Nights" is nowhere to be seen. All the more frustrating because I wanted to love this film.

Most enjoyable confusion - and a ripping yarn too, in a roundabout way. You really get a sense of late 60s/very early 70s LA, and it is phenomenally entertaining. We sat with silly big grins through the entire movie.

Strange, incomprehensible and alluring. Mostly a character driven dialogue affair. The plot doesn't make much sense, which is exactly the point, but it kinda hurts the film at the same time since so much time is spent talking about it. What you get is nostalgia, and melancholy, and hilarity, great acting, witty dialogue and a solid soundtrack.

I do believe everyone is entitled to their opinion, but how a single person was entertained by this film is beyond me. PTA has some great work under his belt (There Will Be Blood, Punch Drunk Love, and Magnolia personal favs) and this is easily his worst and least entertaining piece to date. Joaquin mumbles his lines, random characters babble nonsense, a scene ends with an obscene gesture, rinse and repeat. There's no denying there are some great "meandering" films out there, nice camerawork and good actors will only take you so far with a screenplay like this. This was a shrill experience and one of the worst art-house films I've seen in a while.

Tedious, pointless, a wast of time. Just can't believe how a great director who has made brilliant films like Boogie Nights, Magnolia and The Master could squander effort on something so meandering and facile.

this is a good movie if you're not lookin' for a comedy or a super brilliant detective story tries to include a lot o' the book life-style drug use but not glorification interestin' characters no one is happy (at peace) strong current o' "love" theme (various types) full frontal nudity (female) and sexual depictions/allusions (cunnilingus, fellatio, ****, doggie-style*) music is good for playlist, google: "Songs mentioned in Inherent Vice - Thomas Pynchon Wiki" --h * could be **** decide

This film is so wrong for so many reason. No plot. No characters. No sense. Its like a horrible hangover. I felt **** a bad way. I have such high hopes for this, but man. what disappointment I love P.T. Anderson but he really let me down.

Genuinely funny, trippy neo-noir sees stoner PI Phoenix trying to unravel a case while being out of it all of the time. Beautifully shot, first rate direction and strong performances across the board make this the best film making the rounds. Phoenix and Brolin are excellent.

What a horribly made movie, as well boring. After reading the critics' reviews, I was hoping for a really good movie, but it was so disappointing. The sound was horrible and wish that today's movie would improve upon delivering clear dialogue. There is no excuse, especially when one can pull up a 40's movie where the audio and sound is so much more crisp. Today, the audio/sound is all left up to artistic interpretation of the movie, by whom, I do not know. But, there was so much dialogue in this movie that was lost in the translation due to the poor audio. Given that, the storyline was so shallow, boring, leaving one thinking that sooner or later something good/important was about to happen. Oh well, so many other better movies made this year. Last, the movie could very well done away with the monotonous female voice speaking throughout the movie, describing the emotions, whatever, of the movie. Pathetic. People around us, including my friend all were going to sleep in the movie theater, if that tells anyone anything.

A great experience. Many chuckles; one intriguing character after another. Much unresolved, but that is so true to Pynchon. Best movie I've seen in years.