Cheap Affliction [Region 2] (DVD) (Paul Schrader) Price

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Customer Reviews of Affliction [Region 2]

Stellar acting makes for compelling viewing
I never watched Affliction until a few days ago, and was pleasantly surprised. The story centers around Nick Nolte, who plays a small town cop going through a rough patch, with a failed marriage, and a young daughter who seems to be growing apart from him. He pursues a shooting case that he suspects is a murder conspiracy, and things get more complicated when his mother dies, forcing him to take responsibility for an aging dad who is also violent &abusive [played convincingly by James Coburn]. <
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>There are frequent flashbacks by Nolte to his violent childhood [the make-up people did a great job in portraying a youngish looking James Coburn], and Coburn does a great job playing the abusive, alcoholic father who rages at his family [wife, and two sons]. <
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>There are good supporting roles here besides James Coburn...there is Sissy Spacek who plays Margie, the supportive lover to Nolte's character. There is Willem Dafoe, who though has limited screen time, provides the voice-over narration for the movie & also plays the younger son, Rolfe, who distances himself from the domestic tragedy that is his past by pursuing a scholarly life. <
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>The story is not really anything new: a violent and abusive legacy that torments Nolte's character, begging the question: is the cycle of violence & abuse something that is cyclical, doomed to be repeated through successive generations? Yet, despite the predictable storyline, the acting is excellent, and the story moves along at a steady pace, as we slowly witness Nolte's cop character being driven slowly but surely towards the brink... a dark and tragic story that makes for compelling viewing.

UGH!...I lived this and still was bored to tears!!!!!!
AFFLICTION is about one thing alone; how abuse affects future generations and those that are in the path of the abuser.That said, having come from the this background myself, all I could think of is "Yes this is all sadly true. I know that. I have experienced it first hand. Why did someone feel compelled to make a film about it?" If this film was to enlighten those who lived the idyllic childhood with great parents, perhaps then that audience will be the one most affected by their own disbelief that something could be so tragic. I lived through all that this movie presented, and personally was bored with the entire plot. I knew from moment one where this film was going and NOTHING shocked me or moved me in the least...not even the ending. <
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>AFFLICTION presents an absolute hopeless and nonredeeming story of the legacy of abuse as if there is no escape and nothing but misery and aimlessness for those that lived through it. I cannot disagree more, and this is why I found the movie dull and arriving at a wrong conclusion as far as I am concerned. True, many do not rise above these unfortunate circumstances...granted. There are just as many that do,though! This film presented the "victim" side of abuse and not the "victorious". These people in this New Hampshire town just walked about in a mindless fog,victims simply carrying out their fate. Not for me! Sorry. <
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>Despite James Coburn playing the drunk and violent father, I still believe that his Oscar win was a sympathy nod due to his age.I have seen this role done better and with more force from Dicken's adaptations. Nolte was nothing special and neither was Sissy Spacek. Willem Dafoe has little screen time and does deadpan narration. This film is as bleak as they come and nothing special...especially for those who broke the "affliction" of violence in their own lives. <
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>As important a subject as abuse and violence is, that does not mean that with an assemblage of Oscar winning actors makes it at all a great, watchable or even necessary film. <
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>Films such as the French A LOVING FATHER handled this subject with alot more panache and evenhandedness. <
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>Okay....you can come after me now!!! Let's see where the violence is lurking in you!