2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

riffraffrichard An almost meditative experience with a sprinkle of humour and poetry thats pulls everything together as an excellent minimalist movie. If you are expecting a conventional narrative with plenty of action, this movie could be perceived as boring or vacuous. However, you will be rewarded if you go with the flow of the beautiful cinematography and pacing that helps to explore some interesting philosophical ideas in a visual way. Jarmusch uses repetitive imagery to create a sense of how the main character maintains balance and stability on his unpredictable journey through Spanish landscapes, mysterious strangers and art galleries. The slow and calm pace of the film allows the viewer to experience the main characters discipline, deep focus and intuition. Some great experimental filmmaking here.

unnirad2011 For hardcore cinephiles who seek art movies here is a visual, cerebral and musical feast. After seeing a lot of negative reviews on this absolutely fascinating creation I feel that if one is patient enough to sit through the great, carefully planned wonderful visuals accompanied by a mystique sound track another spectrum unravels before you and the message is crystal clear. Watch for a second time and everything starts thrown unto you. Captivating cinematography, art direction, story (or lack of the same), splendid acting and a lot of mystery .Very cerebral theme with lots of fill in the blanks that has to take place within oneself, this one is in my top ten. A lone man focused on his mission guided by the unseen seeks his target. He is apathetic to guns , music , sex , art , Bohemianism , mobiles ( technology ) and science ( the seemingly corrupting influences offered by the market philosophy world , in its own tainted versions that do with us day in day out ) . The unnamed man is the anti-thesis of the mainstream James Bond. He seldom speaks , dresses up immaculately , practices tai-chi and never " sleeps" even with a voluptuous naked woman beside him .He does not speak Spanish in Spain where the narrative unfolds . Veiled criticism on mainstream cinema ( the glamorous lady with the clear umbrella who parts with the diamonds in a matchbox ) , fashion ( the see through rain coat and the splendid nudity of the nude girl that it reveals ) and the fountain head of all that one abhors which is the American capitalism ( the man in the self locked security chamber who liberally uses the f^$k word and unmistakable Yankee accent ) , the chamber into which the lone man diffuses in using his "imagination" . "Those who think they are big will end up in the cemetery and it is only dirt that awaits him" is the theme quote which is reserved for the big money manipulator .After having seen 'Dead man' in black and white featuring Johnny Depp which is another fine creation from Jim Jarmusch which also has the anti American capitalism as the core theme (or so i presume!!!) and now this , i would keenly await for his next project. A great movie experience with wonderful location and ambiance selection, this DVD is certainly one of my worthy treasures forever.

bluewanders I'll start off by telling you what is great about this film. The cinematography and the use of color are absolutely gorgeous in this film. That's it.Truth told, this movie should be filed as a documentary under landscapes, paintings, and Spanish guitar riffs. That's the bulk of the movie.It begins with the words "life is dirt" and from that stark and empty statement is born a movie you will love to look at but it has no substance. --beginning of spoiler--Allow me to save you some trouble, you really only need to watch the first 20 minutes or so of the movie. Here is how it goes... the main character orders 2 espressos in separate cups from some random source and sits down to stare at a wall or a tree for a few minutes while only drinking one of them... apparently the other is just there for symmetry. Then a super secret but incredibly suspicious and conspicuous person approaches him to have a shallow one sided conversation at him about the nature of life and art (nearly breaking the 4th wall at times in cheeky and pretentious ways to convert the conversation into a still life commenting on the creation of art itself) while he stares blankly in their general direction. Afterwards they exchange a coded message in a matchbox with him and walk away in slow motion while a Spanish fellow strums throatily on his guitar and pretends to be significant. Then the main character eats the coded message, stares at something for a while, usually a single painting, and begins some method of transportation where you will enjoy watching the landscape flash by and more throaty guitar riffs for minutes on end. The cycle will repeat itself a few times. Bang. Mysterious and artsy movie over.-- end of spoiler--You'll experience a few oblique moments of political symbolism leaning toward anarchism and a few aha moments when you realize that there is more of the plot in the visual narrative than anywhere else (it certainly wasn't in the cliché dialog or posturing)... but the director utterly fails to use the film as a springboard to say anything worth the 2 hour wait for it to finish. In the end... this artist is doing nothing more than providing you an opportunity to talk to yourself and I'm sure Andy Warhols skull near the end is laughing at us all.Tomorrow night I plan to watch a TV dinner rotate in my microwave while I comment on its use of color and framing. I have a feeling it won't be anywhere near as lovely to look at, but will be just as significant and more filling.

deherwe Yes, this film is slow, maybe even painfully stagnant due to long scenes and shots of mundane activates. Yes, it does not have much of a plot. Yes, the dialogue is scarce. However, these should not be reasons to not see a movie. A film can still achieve a lot without a fast plot or lots of chatting. What makes a movie really unwatchable is if it is thoroughly uninteresting, which is what Limits of Control is doubtlessly guilty of being.From the first scene, where two men speak to each other through a translator who does not understand the conversation, Limits of Control hails itself as postmodern with the line "Reality is subjective…Reality is arbitrary," From there, the film simply proceeds to tick off a list of stereotypical postmodern themes: subjectivity of reality/human experience, an inability to communicate with others, feeling isolated from the rest of humanity, a plot that refuses to make itself logical to its audience, etc. It even chooses fill most of the movie's runtime with the most boring moments possible: endless minutes of sitting, watching, stretching, and walking. This is a stereotypical postmodern blending of fiction and reality, art that imitates real life. After all, those boring moments are what we, as the audience, fill our days with. As the film continues, the plot repeats over and over the ideas presented in the first half hour, contributing nothing new, even up to the film's conclusion.Ultimately, Limits of Control presents no new interpretations of postmodern ideas. It is textbook, operating off of the same concepts Tomas Pynchon had written about fifty years ago. Unlike films like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Limits of Control does not play with its ideas, have fun with them, or stack layers of confusion and meaning. It is too self-obsessed with presenting itself as art.P.S. It might be worth mentioning that the only enjoyable part of the movie was the two-minute cameo by Bill Murray. Too bad it was right at the end.