People I Know

The very considerable impact of the picture is mainly the work of two men, the author and the star.

Compelling 24-hour odyssey into the life of a world-weary Gotham publicist, driven by a vivid performance from Al Pacino.

Would like to think of itself as a film on the edge, a contemporary descendant of "Sweet Smell of Success." But as it dawdles along, it fails to find contemporary corollaries to the super-charged language and caffeine-fueled pace of that grimy 1957 masterpiece.

Although a marked improvement over Algrant's nightmarishly whimsical debut, "Naked in New York," People I Know is perfumed less by the sweet smell of success than the musty aroma of the Miramax vault.

It was filmed in and around the World Trade Center, and the subsequent cuts, reshoots and sleights of hand designed to obscure that fact prove devastating.

The picture has a lax, sleepy vibe: There's never anything taut or electric about it. And so, like Pacino's character, we sleepwalk through it.

Smushes together “The Bonfire of the Vanities” (the novel, that is), “True Believer,” and “Eyes Wide Shut,” only it does so without being nearly as good as any of the aforementioned.