Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7452 in Movie
• Released on: 2009-10-21
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Running time: 118 minutes

Customer Reviews

English Major Movie
Tom Stoppard is a very clever and gifted writer. However, understand going into this movie that you are expected to know Hamlet inside and out. In fact if you don't recognize the title you may already be in trouble. The plot involves scenes from the play that aren't in the play but exist outside the play. I don't want to ruin it too much for you. It is a meditation on the world of fictional characters. It is very stagy, which is totally approiate to the material, but will certainly put off people who don't enjoy plays versus movies. A very smart film.

In a tragedy even minor characters die
The scene closes in on Rosencrantz & Guildenstern or is it Guildenstern & Rosencrantz discussing the odds of a flipped coin coming up heads. What seems to be a casual curiosity is the setting for the eventual outcome of the story. If the names sound familiar then you will recognize them from the play "Hamlet". Their story was never fully told until now.

Through out the film we get snippets of Hamlet and visions of what is to come. The real fun is in the fact that the dialog and the actors could have easily been seamlessly slipped into the original play.

Their play on words not only matches Shakespeare but a good dose of Lewis Carroll; "Toes on the other hand","Don't you mean the other foot?"

Disperses through the story Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) makes all the great discoveries from gravity to flight to steam engines and so forth. Every time he goes to show them to Guildenstern (Tim Roth) they are overlooked, or dismissed.

The only person that was a tad over the top, acting like he was acting wad Richard Dreyfuss as the leader of the acting troop. However this is one movie that you can get away with it.


Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

AWESOME!
Ah, what to say about "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" (R&GrDead)? In this classic stage-play-turned-movie, we find two characters with little background and no future in the play "Hamlet". They are, of course Rosencrantz and Guildenstern played by Tim Roth and Gary Oldman, respectively (or is it Gary Oldman and Tim Roth respectively? Meh, s'not important) and... well, they die.

As in all great tragedies, all the main characters suffer and then die. Hamlet is no different. The prince finds himself in a bit of a quandry as his mother has married her dead husband's brother. Hamlet becomes 2nd banana to the throne while his uncle-father proceeds with the usurping. Hamlet pretends (maybe) to be insane to preserve his own skin causing great suffering to his beloved Ophelia. If his new king knew that Hamlet was sane, then Hamlet will soon follow the recently deceased king to the grave; more "Not to be" and less "To be".

Richard Dreyfus comes to the castle with his troupe of players to be the foil by playing a slightly altered "Murder of Gonzago". Having been the foil for the newly crowned king, and showing everyone how the old king was killed, we see Richard Dreyfus is also the foil for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in foreshadowing their own demise within the play, and in the movie. In one of the best scenes, we see the play, "Hamlet", being played for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern viewing the scene where the King views the players playing the "Murder of Gonzago" being played while they themselves are in the play "Hamlet" in the movie "R&GrDead". This quadruple nesting makes the geek in me all atwitter. Throughout it all, while trying to recover their past, discovering Gravity, Inertia, Archimedes Principle and Flight, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are tasked to determine what is wrong with their childhood friend, the Prince of Denmark.

A play within a play, it is a masterful piece of work with superb, thought-provoking humor and quick dialog. If you are not familiar with the play Hamlet, I would recommend watching it BEFORE "R&GrDead" (Kevin Branagh's version not Mel Gibson's). While "Hamlet" is tense, dramatic and everything a Shakespearian tragedy should be, "R&GrDead" is a witty comedy placed in a tragedy.

If you like Monty Python, Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, Absolutely Fabulous, etc., you are going to LOVE this move (some restrictions apply; not applicable in all fifty states; users may experience varying levels of mirth due to varying levels of intelligence and tolerance for the absurd).