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An indictment of the British class system dressed up like a Ralph Lauren ad, Another Country is the movie that made a very young and very gorgeous Rupert Everett a star. Whatever other ideas it has knocking around its head (and there are quite a lot of them), director Marek Kanievska's adaptation of Julian Mitchell's play is first and foremost a star vehicle for Everett, who played the openly gay main character with a vigor, flair, and smoldering appeal that was rarely seen onscreen in the early '80s. Everett is Guy Bennett, a charming, confident schoolboy in 1930s England who yearns to climb to the top of the social strata at his Eton-like school. His ambitions, however, are waylaid by the young and equally gorgeous James Harcourt (Cary Elwes), with whom he begins a passionate yet secret affair. Soon, however, Guy finds that balancing his love and his ambition is a no-win situation, and that no matter how hard he bucks against it, the ages-old traditional structures of British class and etiquette won't yield in his wake. Added to all this E.M. Forster-style drama and romance is the fact that Guy later on becomes a spy for the Russians against England; it's a weighty theme to drop on the movie, and the fact that it's a true story just shows how less than artfully the film unfolds. Still, holding it all together is the sublime Everett, who took this persona of the classy, beautiful, passionate, British gay man and ran with it throughout the '80s and '90s. With Colin Firth as Everett's Marxist (and heterosexual) compatriot. --Mark Englehart ... Read more

Reviews (63)

Love/Hate Relationship With This Movie
Perhaps the movie looked better than it was. Maybe the book was better than the film. It could be that there was just something missing.

All told, I wanted to like this film, a lot. All of the pieces are there for a good movie: compelling story line, sympathetic characters, interesting twists. For some reason, however, I was left feeling like something was missing. I just wanted more and I didn't get it.

The movie is not a feel good movie or a preachy movie (although it tries to do so with its drug message), but it does have some great things going for it. The music was excellent, Robert Downey Jr. is very good, and some of the cinematography (especially the last few minutes of the film) was inspired.

Still, you can't overlook some of the problems. The acting is simply uneven. Andrew McCarthy looks as though he is interviewing for a stuffy banking position. The relationship between Julian and his father is never really played out. Rip's henchman looks like a California surfer with an attitude problem, not a bouncer type that is out to do no good. The movie all but says that if you are 18, white, and live in Beverly Hills, your main entertainment venue is snorting cocaine.

For me, this film was truly a love/hate relationship. I simply wanted more to love and less to hate.

I don't care what the others say!
I've both read this book and seen this movie. They're right who say it doesn't follow the book in "plot" (but then again if you read the book you'd realize it was one of those good books like "Catcher in the Rye" without a real "plot"- which wouldn't make too good a movie now would it?). This is a moving movie and the acting is brilliant most of the time, especially from Robert Downey Jr. He plays the part of the hopeless junky so well that it's almost eerie sometimes. Jamie Gertz did a good job playing the hypocritical yet caring friend who makes it her mission in life to protect the Downey Jr. character. And Andrew McCarthy puts off just the right mixture of depth of feeling and the detachment of an outsider who's been away for too long. The casting was great and they did what they could to make this a good movie, and succeeded. It was real, scary, intelligent, and suspensful. Watch it!

Re: Downeys finest hour
Two words apply to this movie: Robert Downey. He gives an incredible performance as Julian a drug addicted pal of two old high school friends. Its astonishing to me that he wasnt at least nominated for an Academy Award. Downeys performance is beyond convincing, it will literally send chills down your spine.

See it for Robert Downey, it is truly his finest hour.

To live and die in LA
Ok, so it might be someone else's film title, but this is one of the essential 80s brat flicks and concerns the said heading in every aspect. Let's get the rubbish out of the way. The plot is twiddled with until it barely resembles the book. A lot of Ellis' humour gets lost in translation. Blair is a brunette unlike her published blonde doppelganger. Hmmm.
That said, Less Than Zero is probably the one film that epitomises the 80s like no other for me. The opening shots, with the Bangles brilliant cover of 'Hazy Shade...' clanging in the background, still invites chills.
Others have written the plot succintly, so I will say that if you want a cold, clinical, no exit look at being a rich, bored teen in LA, search no further. Blair (Jamie Gertz)is deliciously confused, drugged and flakey, and Clay, the solid rock in the middle of his friends' breakdowns is perfectly cast in a youthful Andrew McCarthy. Top honours go to Robert Downey Jnr, spookily playing out his own future as the drug addled Julian with frenetic highs and lows, insincere to himself and broken to his mates, and James Spader as the vile pimp and dealer Rip.
Wonderfully photographed by Edward Lachman, it's simultaneously lush and sparse. If the end scenes don't get you sobbing into a pillow, then take that stone out of your chest and get a heart. Less Than Zero has been unfairly mauled by many, but it stands up today as a film with much more going for it than you may think. For starters, it may be one of the only teen flicks that doesn't make you howl/cringe because of ropey dialogue and cheeseball disco moments. Its 'drugs message' is played out minus politics and simply invites you take a journey with the characters. Death, it seems to say, is inevitable for everyone, some just go a little faster.
Less Than Zero is sexy, frank and troubled. There could not have been a better antithesis to the whizz bang makeover! of other 80s teen films (John Hughes take note!). Helped by a storming soundtrack, this one should be in your collection somewhere.

totally different than the book
I read the book 1st then saw the movie and they were totally different. Really only the character's names were the same. The book is way more detailed (obviously) and graffic and told by Clay's point of view only. I think I would have really liked the movie if I had not read the book 1st. The book is better but way worse so if you can't take graffic nature stick with the movie. The performance of the actors were great though and in itself it was a good movie. Below are major examples of the differences between the two (spoilers). (...)In the book:
The story focuses entirely on Clay not the story of 3 friends like the movie. You don't even "see" Julian in the book until much later and he is already established as a prostitute. He has no reconciliation scene with his dad and he doesn't die. He doesn't ask for $50,000 but rather money for an abortion and when he goes to get him his money back he makes him watch him prostitute for it. Rip is a dealer but not the pimp. Clay sits and watches Julian while he is prostituting himself for 5 hours - not just busts in and save him like the movie.

Clay does just as much drugs as everyone else and has sex with another guy and other women besides blair.

More characters are outlined and it is more detailed in 80's culture and music.

They watch a snuff movie. They tie up and sexaully assault a preteen and eventhough clay doesn't watch or condone it he doesn't stop it and just leaves.

There is no great love affair between clay and blair like in movie - he doesn't really care for her or love her anymore.

People shoot heroine.

They find a dead body and gawk at it and dont do anything about it. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Linda Fiorentino is her lean, sexy self as Carol, a former prom queen who's grown up to be a nurse in an old-age home, which isn't quite what she imagined her future would be. She's married to her prom king, Wayne (Dermot Mulroney), who's grown a little dull. Then Henry (Paul Newman) gets delivered into her care. He's an imprisoned bank robber who has had a stroke. Or has he? Carol begins to try to suss him out, even going so far as to straddle him in his wheelchair and fondle his ears, but it's not until she pushes him into a reservoir that he breaks his masquerade. Carol, desperate to get some excitement in her life, convinces Henry to pull a job with her. She starts casing banks and scoping out armored cars. When Wayne gets jealous of the time she's spending with Henry, he gets pulled into the deal--and a heist is underway. What makes Where the Money Is click isn't the fairly standard plot, it's the character details. Written in part by E. Max Frye--who wrote Something Wild (one of the best and most unappreciated movies of the 1980s)--the film consistently manages to give every character, no matter how small, something that makes them seem real. Though the pace starts out slow, and there are some not entirely convincing story elements, once the heist starts all this nuance pays off--every complication produces real tension because you've gotten to know Carol, Henry, and Wayne so well. Newman's effortless performance shows how he's stayed a star through five decades. --Bret Fetzer ... Read more

Reviews (20)

Newman Delivers
I really enjoyed this movie. It wasn't just the actors in it either. The story was fun to watch even if it was a little simple. In this drama comedy Paul Newman still has that great ability to act and really shows it off in this lead role. He plays an old thief that fakes a stroke to get out of prison. When his plan of collecting some old cash he had stashed away falls through, Carol (played by Linda Fiorentino) convinces him to hi-jack an armored car. This movie is fun to watch and in certain parts really makes you laugh. Also in this film, Dermot Mulroney, who plays Fiorentino's husband. If you are a Paul Newman fan then pick this one up. But even if you're not then you should give it a try. You might like it.

Newman Buttresses a Pleasant Surprise
Linda Fiorentino plays a prom queen who finds herself working in a nursing home--and something less than satisfied with her life. Paul Newman arrives at the home in shackles, temporarily released from prison because he was feigning a stroke. A notorious bank robber, Newman's character is shrouded in intrigue. Though he's a dangerous character, Fiorentino's character, Carol, starts spending a lot of time alone with him.

Carol is a sexy and smart woman. (This is the first of Fiorentino's movies I remember seeing. Sh'es incredibly attractive, and will have to look for her in other movies.) One of Carol's causes for displeasure is her husband, Wayne, played by infrequent star Dermot Mulroney.

The plot plays out out very well, though the beginning stumbles a bit. The acting isn't great, though the charismatic and smooth Newman mostly carries the film. While the story at times is inplausible, it's a very watchable and light movie.

What I really enjoyed was the aftermath: while the bank caper movie is a bit formula, this incarnation is twisted with life-purpose and satisfaction crisis storylines, and an interesting resolution. The story comes off as a spirise to those who'd take it as cookie-cutter for the genre.

The cameara work is great, and the production quality is outstanding. The audio is a little muddy, but fits its genere very well.

a pretty good way to spend 90 minutes
A clever caper, "Where the Money Is" stars the inimitable Paul Newman as Henry Manning, a bank robber who went untouched for 20 years before bad luck landed him in the pen. Not one to call it quits, he fakes a heart attack and is transferred to a nursing home, where the only thing that stands in his way is a nurse named Carol (Linda Fiorentino).
This clever caper flick seems somewhat out of time, like a classic film and I enjoyed it immensely for this reason. The best part of this film is the performances. Linda Fiorentino is still the ... woman acting today. It's not about how she looks, but the way she carries herself

kansas needs to lighten up.
This movie is a hoot and of course, Paul Newman, is superb. You watch a movie for entertainment. Don't take everything so seriously!

Good acting in a fluff plot
I like a fun caper movie when all the right elements that go with it are in place. This movie has a plot that flat out wouldn't work, which would be ok in a movie like "Sugar and Spice", where we just care about how the cheerleaders look. But this one is trying to be more serious, and with it should come grittier crime scenarios.

The serious part is to show Paul Newman faking paralysis in order to get to a rest home instead of prison as a means of making an escape. While very unlikely in itself, he plays it seriously. Also played seriously is the attempt by Linda Fiorentino to unmask the charade. The chemistry between the two actors is excellent, both here, and throughout the entire movie, and that's what gets it three stars. Paul Newman shows he's still very much worth seeing, and I hope they give him a few more higher quality films before he packs it in.

But while I liked the interraction between the two main characters, unfortunately everything else is, well, fluff. Dermot Mulroney has a completely thankless role as the husband who feels he's losing his wife to the much older Newman. Since he isn't really a bad person, I don't like that the movie makes him do something to make us dislike him by the end.

But the part I disliked the most was the crime caper they go on. Newman once again shows marvelous talent as an actor as they go on it, but it's the heist they do that doesn't convinvce me for a minute that it would work. Nor does the ending when confronted by the police, nor does the very final few minutes. With the recent quality filming of Elmore Leonard novels, the bar has risen in the way movies need to portray the criminal world.

Linda Fiorentino has proven she can do great work, and Paul Newman is a national treasure. Let's give him the respect he deserves with a few more quality roles. ... Read more