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avclub.com - : For his next role, David Schwimmer needs to play a serial killer. Or maybe a hard-nosed Dirty Harry cop. Or a hearty lumberjack. Whatever he does, he can't play another hunched-over, watery-eyed sad-sack, because after a decade of playing Ross on Friends, he's already long since completely tapped the world's vast reserves of pity. The middling indie drama Duane Hopwood has been billed as a change of pace for Schwimmer, casting him in a downscale role similar to the cashier role his Friends-mate Jennifer Aniston took in The Good Girl. But don't be fooled: The character of a working-class Atlantic City alcoholic may seem worlds removed from a yuppie Manhattan paleontologist, but the most passive-aggressive schlub in television history hasn't gone away. He's just gone to seed a little. more...
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efilmcritic.com - : Here, Schwimmer plays Duane Hopwood, a degenerate alcoholic whose bad habits have already cost him his marriage (to Janeane Garofalo) and now threaten his vague contact with his children. As generic light beer is to Guinness Stout, this movie is to the infinitely superior “Leaving Las Vegas” as the mopey Duane spirals further and further downward–all the while insisting that he doesn’t have a problem. The trouble is that writer-director Matt Mulhern seems to agree with that assessment and contrives to position him as a likable and sympathetic hero despite his cruelty towards others, his self-loathing attitude towards himself and his pronounced unwillingness to change his destructive ways. more...
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www.filmthreat.com - : Writer-director Matt Mulhern’s “Duane Hopwood” isn’t a textbook example of how not to make a character-driven dramedy, but it’s close. Loaded with unoriginal ideas, weak comedic concepts, and underwhelming emotional climaxes, the movie is the definition of bland. more...
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Critic Reviews
