'Round Midnight (1986)

Good concept, poorly executed.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

It's difficult to believe that the heart of this great movie didn't influence a later equally fine paean to friendship Il Postino. This one was almost true celebrating as it does the friendship between pianist Bud Powell and a young French admirer whilst Il Postino was based on the real friendship of the very real Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and the ingenuous young Italian who delivered his mail whilst he was in exile in Italy. Though Round Midnight was marketed as a film about Jazz, specifically what at the time (the late fifties) was known as 'modern' jazz and which had in turn evolved from Be-Bop it is much, much more a film about friendship and redemption. If you are a Jazz buff - and I am - then the Jazz is merely a bonus, albeit a terrific bonus but Francois Cluzet and Dexter Gordon deserve all the accolades available as does Bertrand Tavernier, who, not content with making the definitive jazz movie went on to do the same for the Occupation in Laissez-passer. A truly outstanding movie. Ten stars going away.

I don't know how anyone could rave about this film. I thought it was excruciatingly long, slow and very, very boring. I gave it two stars out of ten.I must say that Dexter Gordon is one of my least favorite players of his generation and what fame he was able to garner probably comes more to do with his having outlived the rest of his contemporaries than it does with his musical accomplishments, but to focus so much attention on him and to have to listen to him hoarsely whisper or mumble his lines for over two hours was torture. And here was yet another example of "Ray" or "Walk the Line" syndrome - a biopic about a one-time talent who had become a derelict begging for drinks. Why are we supposed to find this kind of behavior interesting or entertaining? I was not touched and found it impossible to care about what happened to his character.I thought the music was very disappointing, and mostly because of Dexter Gordon. It seemed like he was holding everyone else back. He was appearing alongside a bunch of other guys, all known hotshots, who all looked like they came to play and Gordon could barely squawk out a few notes. In general, all the music was too slow, it barely held together and it was pretty much lifeless and dull. I was so disappointed, especially after the build-up this film got. I don't see how anyone with even the most cursory and superficial interest in jazz can call the music in this film "great jazz".I don't know what kind of a fetish or obsession this director had with jazz, but I thought all of the discussion on screen about the music sounded completely sophomoric and pretentious. It also bugged me greatly to hear Dexter Gordon's character speaking of the evolution of advanced harmony and some of the players who helped usher it forward with new technical and theoretical innovations and placing himself in the time line alongside the likes of Basie, Charlie Parker, etc. Of course, this was not Dexter Gordon talking, but his character, but it was irksome for me to hear Gordon, who is a second class jazz man, talk like he was the Son of God or something.The story line was tedious, what little plot that there was. Why this Francis character would ever get so worked up over the Dale Turner character didn't wash for me. Okay, if this was about the real-life relations between Bud Powell and Francis Paudras, I could see why he'd basically give his life over to help the guy, but from what was shown in this film, it landed like a lead turkey. I fault the director and also the whomever it was that made the terrible casting decision to use Dexter Gordon who, at 63, was way too old for the part. Powell would have been 34, Lester Young would have been 50 in 1959. Gordon seemed too physically challenged and barely able to speak so that it was painful to have to sit through his performance. Watching Gordon was like watching an old dog trying to get up the stairs.In a perverse irony, seeing Martin Scorcese on screen as the oily manager of Dale Turner was strangely humorous.For a film that is supposed to be anthemic and give a definitive view into the jazz world, 'Round Midnight misses the beat.

This movie should have been a jazz documentary. The music is excellent but the acting and the script are disappointing. Overlong, unnecessary characters (Francis' daughter, parents). Buy the soundtrack and listen to it but you might skip this movie.

Herbie Hancock's Oscar winning score is the marvel that proves that the Academy screens even the smallest films for consideration. Dexter Gordon is brilliant in an Oscar nominated performance as an improvising and misunderstood jazz genius whose speciality is the tenor-sax.The film is set in 1950's Paris and Gordon is supported in his art by a loyal Frenchman who is his biggest fan. The way the film moves in pace is equivalent to listening to a warm and richly textured jazz score with medium movement. In fact, turning down the volume and watching it with sub titles suitable to your language while listening to that type of jazz score through headphones is a great way to enjoy it. Better yet, do it with the film's authentic score. It cooks!