Now I never saw the Michael Caine version of Alfie back in 1966 so if you are looking for a comparison you won’t find one here since I don’t have anything to compare to. What I can tell you is that I am not a big fan of Jude Law, but after viewing the trailer I felt that this just might be the role that turns me around, and I was right…. sort of.
Alfie follows the title character played by Jude Law, a womanizer without a care or a conciseness as to what, or whom, he is doing. As he bounces from girl to girl, narrating his entire life in first person to the audience, he suddenly gains a conscience and begins to question “what’s it all about?”
That last little bit is the key to liking or hating this movie. The entire film is told in first person as Alfie introduces each scene and gives the audience his thoughts on everything, and while this is very comical in the beginning by the time you get to the end of the film you wish he would just shut up.
On the other hand, I will reiterate my earlier sentiments and say that this is easily the best acting job I have seen Jude Law take part in, and it is a performance I can only hope he will build on in Closer later this year. The character of Alfie is finally a role that Law was able to embody and make me believe that he was this character.
Beyond Jude this movie boasts a huge cast of names, from the women of Alfie, Marisa Tomei, Nia Long, Susan Sarandon, Jane Krakowski and Sienna Miller, on down to Omar Epps they are all great and it is just unfortunate that a tedious storyline and a poor use of the first person narrative had to get in the way.
On top of all those problems this movie goes right along perfectly, on its way to a PG-13 rating, when suddenly Sienna Miller decides to go topless and present the movie with an R rating. Now, I am not against women going topless in movies, especially attractive women (that Kathy Bates thing in About Schmidt was over the top), but when there is no need for it and it seems out of place it really just throws things off track.
Alfie is a movie to avoid in theaters but check out on video, Jude Law gives a worthy performance but it just misses the mark in too many areas to be one to recommend.
