Amadeus - Okay

Stars: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge
Director: Milos Forman
Runtime: 2 hours, 40 minutes
Categories: Biography, Drama

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This is a biographical movie, or as the cover of the DVD box says “The Man... The Music... The Madness... The Murder… The Motion Picture.” The film starts off with an old man trying to kill himself (Antonio). Then we are taking down the path of the history Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) who is apparently both Mozart’s peer and rival throughout his entire musical career. From what I can tell by this movie, it doesn’t seem like Mozart even knew that Antonio was his rival. Tom Hulce plays the infamous Mozart in this biographical film that’s also based off a stage play, and though I don’t know anything about the man’s history, it was interesting to watch him come to life on screen.

Dubbed as a comedy, there are plenty opportunities for this film to show it’s humor. Mozart himself is a vulgar man (as he even says so himself) and the concepts of all the operas that he plays are suppose to be comedic and vulgar just like him. I had no ida that Mozart wrote operas, so I learned something (I know, I know I shouldn’t turn to movies to learn things, who knows what’s true and what’s put in there for a film’s sake). I for one love classical music, and this was really the only aspect of the film that I liked. All the music was pleasing to the ear, however, it just wasn’t fun to watch.

The relationship between Wolgang and his father was not a happy one. Wolfgang is an immature man who let’s the fame go to his head. His father tries to knock him out of it, but ultimately does not succeed. The end scene shows us how Wolgang mourns the loss of his father, by writing an opera. And then it just ends. That’s it? I would like to find out more about Antonio and if he really did murder Mozart, we are never given that answer. WTF?

… And after talking to David about this, it seems that something was wrong with the DVD I had. There was more after that scene…No wonder I felt like it stopped in the middle of the movie. Not sure what happened there. I’m not too sad about it.

Overall, I didn’t really enjoy this movie. I thought the actors were decent, but nothing substantial really stood out to me. I’m on the fence here between an “okay” and a “hated it.” I guess because I liked listening to all the music of the film, I’ll go with an “Okay” rating (2/5). But I don’t recommend it.