Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

I wasn't going to write an opinion on this movie. Mainly because if you're going to like this movie, you've probably already seen it.

There is a lot of misunderstanding about this movie, and it has been overlooked. (The movie not the misunderstanding)

First off, the main joke of the story is missed by most people I've seen review the movie (not here really, I've only read a few of them and there aren't that many anyway). R & G aren't dead (to begin with), and they aren't confused, and they aren't idiots, and they don't really forget things all the time. None of those things, and many others, that you hear people saying about this movie is actually the case.

The joke of the movie is that it is Hamlet as seen from the point of view of two characters who aren't really characters. They act confused because there is no them to them. As someone famous once said, there's no there there. They don't know which of them is which because there is never any distinction made in Hamlet. They don't know anything about themselves or the world because there is no depth given to them in Hamlet.

You have to go back to Hamlet and a certain level of analyzation of the play. R & G are confidant characters. They only exist in the play at all so that Hamlet can talk to them and share his thoughts to the audience (he can't talk to himself all the time). But, they have nothing of themselves in the play. We aren't told anything about them, and they are really only referred to as the group R & G (never just R or just G). Even when Hamlet is talking to them he doesn't talk to one or the other, but is always saying my dear R & G.

So, suppose you had to read Hamlet and then were given the assignment, "Tell me everything you know about R & G."

This is where this play/movie comes from. They remember being sent for. Or do they? Were they sent for? Well, they are going to see the King, they must have been sent for. You don't just go to see the King.

They aren't confused in the strict sense, they just haven't been given any information to work with. From the point of view of the original text, they are just suddenly there, and they have come to see Hamlet because they were sent for. Now imagine that you are them in the original text version. Poof! Here you are and you have been sent for and you are a friend of Hamlet's and that's all you know. That's all you know about you or being here or Hamlet or anything. That's the 'joke', explore the characters where there is no character to explore.

Now, as far as the movie itself. The acting is brilliant all around. The majority of the movie is really just R & G by themselves with occasional interruptions by extras. The dialogue is superb, and the flow of the movie is excellent. The best part of the thing is how R & G attempt to plot out what they will do when they meet up with Hamlet, and what actually happens when they do.

As I said, you probably need a certain appreciation for not only Shakespeare, but the kind of humor that this 'joke' entails. If you have such an appreciation, you have probably already seen the movie. It is certainly worth watching even if you don't, but I can't be held responsible for your not liking it. If you haven't read Hamlet, then they don't know what's going on, and you don't know what's going on, and it is hard to say where that might lead.

Even if you don't know Hamlet, this is well written wit and might lead you to want to read (or at least see) Hamlet, and so it might have that going for it.

I cannot recommend this movie enough. If you can appreciate it, it is among the best movies of all time. I can easily see where this sort of movie is not for everyone though (even if you like Shakespeare). In a lot of ways it isn't very movieish. It's worth the chance either way.

Recommended: Yes