A slog through determined wackiness, it's apt to leave audiences cold.
Comment
07/07/08
Diminished Capacity (2008)
31
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:29
Fresh:9
Rotten:20
Average Rating:5.2/10
Consensus: This low-key comedy about memory loss offers mild pleasures but is too bland to fully resonate.
Synopsis: After a concussion leaves him unfocused, short on short-term memory, and demoted from the political pages to the comics, Cooper (Matthew Broderick), a Chicago newspaper editor, travels home to... [More]
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Virginia Madsen, Alan Alda, Louis C.K.
Director: Terry Kinney
Reviews for Diminished Capacity
Diminished Capacity is blessed with a blue-ribbon cast.
07/02/08
A gentle, agreeable dramedy, Capacity reveals that Kinney has a unique hold on tone and shares a palpable charm with his actors.
07/17/08
The problem with this film ... is that it features too many other sad sack characters who ... contribute to an excess of sad-sackness.
07/03/08
It has moments of sweetness, but not enough poignancy or wit to turn it into the endearing art-house comedy that it aspires to be.
07/03/08
Top CriticGreat, just what we needed: another rote exercise in indie-feely humanism.
07/02/08
There is some suspense as to the fate of that baseball card.
07/08/08
A mediocre effort that never really goes anywhere and never really pays off, trying too hard to be funny without delivering on the premises introduced over the course of the movie.
07/01/08
The milieu is interesting but there's too much acting (particularly by Alda) in this quasi-witty, semi-melancholy road comedy, perhaps a result of helmer Kinney's theatrical background and lack of directorial skills.
06/27/08
I wonder if all this worked better as a book. It begins modestly interesting, but becomes merely agitated.
07/10/08
A movie about memory loss shouldn't be so forgettable.
07/02/08
Sherwood Kiraly's slight script only makes this embarrassment of riches seem more embarrassing.
12/08/08
Bland indie comedy isn't very memorable.
07/02/08
Although this is no 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off', Matthew Broderick does return to Chicago for a wonderful, wacky little gem.
07/08/08
A pleasant enough diversion, but DC will be bettered watched from the horizontal position of a couch, one to which the film seems all too eager to send you.
01/28/08
Top CriticSuffering from a diminished level of interest, do we know how to live up to a title, or what?
07/15/08
Plays like diminished comedy.
01/23/08
Alda's Hawkeye Pierce charm gives way to something snappish and cagey, while Broderick's fussy stiffness is perfect.
07/16/08
Smart and well-written, filled with good lines and just enough offbeat moments to make it interesting, not annoying.
07/03/08
The actors look as if they’re having a reasonably fine time, but there’s no sense of commitment here, no sense that this was a movie that absolutely, passionately had to be made.
07/04/08
Top CriticLatest News for Diminished Capacity
July 06, 2008:
Trailer & Poster review 
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