Full Frontal (2002)

The critic calls it a head-spinning circular journey through reflections and representations that showcases Soderbergh as a master filmmaker using DV effectively for blurry identities and meta elements. He notes that the human element occasionally gets lost amid the pretzel logic and digressions.

Soderbergh should be forgiven for the low-budget improv experiment with famous friends, but the green script and half-cocked device make it self-indulgent; the digital camera provides some intimacy and comic set-pieces.

The film is a trivial and smug meander through a day in the lives of various LA characters having personal crises, relying on in-jokes. It is outshone by Robert Altman as a tapestry of Hollywood lives and duplicates earlier improv experiments.

The critic finds the film an inscrutable, overly self-reflexive experiment that fails to be about anything in particular and amounts to pointless claptrap. He singles out the meta structure and varying film stocks as unsuccessful attempts to separate reality from fiction.

The critic dismisses the film as a preposterous satire and dismal, pointless jigsaw on the film industry.

Soderbergh's attempt at a neo-Godardian deconstruction of cinematic reality fails to add up to any coherent fiction, making it one of the most naïvely awful films from a major director. It singles out the arbitrary mess of levels of representation and the unappealing low-budget methods as ostentation rather than substance.

The review finds the film a disappointing lapse into self-indulgence, flimsy, uninvolving and pointlessly arty as an empty tribute to Godard and Dogme-style experimentation. The strong ensemble cast helps commercially but mainstream audiences will find it frustratingly impenetrable.

The critic finds the film fatally flawed as an escape to indie roots, describing it as a chic home movie full of familiar faces that fails to engage beyond small doses.

The film experiments with form through a movie-within-a-movie structure and loose connections among characters over one day, resulting in a fragmented narrative that dismembers continuity. It singles out strong performances, particularly from Nicky Katt and Julia Roberts in certain scenes, as exceptions amid the overall stylistic play.

The critic notes that Soderbergh has gotten carried away with himself in this grab bag of cinematic tricks that juggles planes of reality and fiction. The result is a disjointed and frustratingly self-absorbed Hollywood home movie, though Catherine Keener is typically outstanding.

The film is arid, self-consciously arty and emotionally uninvolving, a conventionally experimental exercise that will flummox admirers and bore the public despite the director's streak of hits. It singles out the production methods and mixed formats as more interesting than the stifling, audience-unfriendly material on screen.

The critic finds the film infuriating for being too close to real life yet invigorating because it doesn't care. They praise the beautifully observed touches, moments of absurdity and despair, and especially the performances of Catherine Keener and David Hyde Pierce.