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Movies / On DVD / Finding Amanda
Finding Amanda

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Finding Amanda (2008)

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Reviews Counted:40

Fresh:17

Rotten:23

Average Rating:5.2/10

Consensus: Despite a charming turn by Matthew Broderick, Finding Amanda is too flimsily executed to succeed as a dark comedy.

Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins

Genre: Comedies

US Box Office: $31,340

Synopsis: From director Peter Tolan, creator of the hit television series Rescue Me, comes Finding Amanda, a hilarious and heartbreaking autobiographical comedy about the compulsions we can’t shake, and the... From director Peter Tolan, creator of the hit television series Rescue Me, comes Finding Amanda, a hilarious and heartbreaking autobiographical comedy about the compulsions we can’t shake, and the unlikely lengths we’ll go to while trying.

Taylor Mendon (Matthew Broderick) is a television writer and producer working on a low-rated, little-respected half-hour sitcom. Once destined for bigger and better things, Taylor's compulsive gambling, recreational drug use and drinking all conspired to throw his career off the rails. After kicking the alcohol and drugs, he only has one more hurdle...the horses.

His beautiful twenty - year old niece Amanda (Brittany Snow) has her own habit to kick. Living in Las Vegas, working as a "dancer," her family has just discovered she is actually a prostitute, and they suspect hooking for drug money.

On their way home from an emergency family meeting, Taylor's wife Lorraine (Maura Tierney) finds recent racing stubs in Taylor's glove compartment. After years of standing by him, she leaves.

Taylor comes up with a plan: he'll win back his wife by doing the right thing. He'll go to Las Vegas, find Amanda, and deliver her to a rehabilitation center in Malibu. While he’s at it, he might even catch up with some old friends (like slimy casino host Steve Coogan). But besides that, it’s strictly the business at hand—while he's there, he vows, he won't gamble a single cent, but things don’t turn out quite as he’d planned. --© Magnolia Films
[More]

Starring: Matthew Broderick, Brittany Snow, Maura Tierney, Peter Facinelli

Starring: Matthew Broderick, Brittany Snow, Maura Tierney, Peter Facinelli, Steve Coogan, Bill Fagerbakke

Director: Peter Tolan

Director: Peter Tolan
Screenwriter: Peter Tolan
Producer: Wayne Rice, Richard Heller
Composer: Christopher Tyng
Studio: Mitropoulos Films

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Reviews for Finding Amanda

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1 - 20 (sorted by fresh rating; Australian critics are listed first)
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Full Review Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch | comment Comment
10/18/08
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The familiar premise here has sharp fangs, unsparing wit and a knockout performance by Brittany Snow as the round-heeled 20-year-old.

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
06/27/08
Amy Nicholson
Amy Nicholson
Boxoffice Magazine

Finding Amanda has its wispy charms, including a funny scene when the ecstasy Taylor pops begins to kick in, and later when he encounters a pimp with showbiz aspirations.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
06/26/08
Ann Hornaday
Ann Hornaday
Washington Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Amanda is a generously funny, sharp-edged comedy with unusual promise, and to watch it grow a conscience when clearly the film needed more generous helpings of acid is one of the year's great mysteries.

Full Review Source: BrianOrndorf.com | comment Comment
06/26/08
Brian Orndorf
Brian Orndorf
BrianOrndorf.com

Hopelessly uneven yet admittedly entertaining...

Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews | comment Comment
10/06/08
David Nusair
David Nusair
Reel Film Reviews

A fun look at Vegas that imbues the seediness of the setting with a sense of innocence and warmth that might take some by surprise.

Full Review Source: ComingSoon.net | comment Comment
06/24/08
Edward Douglas
Edward Douglas
ComingSoon.net

By keeping the tone light and the players human (Steve Coogan has a nice turn as a greasy casino host), and never, ever romanticizing the addict, Finding Amanda comes by its heartbreak honestly.

Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | comment Comment
06/26/08
Ella Taylor
Ella Taylor
L.A. Weekly

A breakthrough for Brittany Snow who shows she can do much more than horrible remakes and teen comedies...

Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed | comment Comment
06/20/08
Felix Vasquez Jr.
Felix Vasquez Jr.
Cinema Crazed

Writer-director Peter Tolan has glibness down pat, but can't quite wring the intended pathos from his characters' desperate lives. He does, however, give Broderick his best part since Election.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Daily News | comment Comment
06/27/08
Glenn Whipp
Glenn Whipp
Los Angeles Daily News

Spot-on casting of Brittany Snow in the title role makes the fun movie with a serious turn both entertaining and credible.

Full Review Source: Compuserve | comment Comment
06/10/08
Harvey S. Karten
Harvey S. Karten
Compuserve

A very darkly humorous film.

Full Review Source: Newsday | comment Comment
10/18/08
John Anderson
John Anderson
Newsday

Much of Finding Amanda doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, but at its best the still-boyish Broderick suggests his most famous character, Ferris Bueller, going through a midlife crisis.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
06/27/08
Lou Lumenick
Lou Lumenick
New York Post

It's amusing but facile, reasonably clever but hopelessly glib.

Full Review Source: AV Club | comment Comment
06/26/08
Nathan Rabin
Nathan Rabin
AV Club

Doesn't have a nuance in it, but it's pretty consistently amusing in its latter-day Woody Allen way. For most of the way, its morals are happily, believably wrong, but all bad things must come to an end.

Full Review Source: Groucho Reviews | comment Comment
06/27/08
Peter Canavese
Peter Canavese
Groucho Reviews

Matthew Broderick regains his cinematic stride as a morosely wise-cracking television producer on the skids, ably abetted by Maura Tierney as his much-put-upon wife and Brittany Snow as his perky prostitute niece.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
10/18/08
Ronnie Scheib
Ronnie Scheib
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Set mostly in Las Vegas, Finding Amanda offers a vision of confused Americans losing their already shaky bearings in the world’s gaudiest honky-tonk.

comment Comment
06/27/08
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The interplay between Broderick and Snow ultimately make Finding Amanda more enjoyable than it should be.

Full Review Source: Let's Not Listen | comment Comment
06/26/08
Tricia Olszewski
Tricia Olszewski
Let's Not Listen

Amanda can never find a tone. It opens with a scene-reading (Taylor is a writer on a hacky TV show) that produces yawns, where our lead character is the only one that laughs. It's prophetic.

Full Review Source: The Deadbolt | comment Comment
06/27/08
Brian Tallerico
Brian Tallerico
The Deadbolt

The film's tone shifts jarringly from superficial broad comedy to something far darker. And the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold scenario is as old as the profession itself.

Full Review Source: USA Today | comment Comment
06/26/08
Claudia Puig
Claudia Puig
USA Today
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Too much of Peter Tolan's movie takes up Taylor's self-absorption as if it's actually interesting.

Full Review Source: PopMatters | comment Comment
06/27/08
Cynthia Fuchs
Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters
 
 
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