First Monday in October Rating: Release Date: 06 July, 2004 Retail Price: $14.99 OUR Price: $14.02 You SAVE: $0.97! Cast: Walter Matthau

First Monday in October Reviews

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Great Story - Great Cast
First Monday in October is a wonderful story, Walter Matthau is outstanding and funny as the irascible "Great Dissenter". Jill Clayburgh's "Madame Justess" presents a great foil and she carries off the role with aplomb. Filled with great lines and wonderful debates, this movie is well worth watching again and again.

Worth watching but fails to live up to its potential
Matthau was a veteran actor and Clayburgh was a rising star in Hollywood when this movie was made. This is a lightweight comedy-drama. There is some great verbal sparring between the two and you expect the movie to put them in situations that can take advantage of it but unfortunately the plot is not up to the standard of the actors.

Clayburgh plays the first woman to be appointed to the US Supreme Court. Mathhau is one of the current Justices, a crusty veteran who doesn't get along with anyone else. The plot calls for Clayburgh to beconservative and Matthau a liberal. This helps get the verbal sparring going early.

Unfortunately the plot starts to bog down and is a disappointment after the initial promise shown. The writers create some sexual tension between the two as Clayburgh and Matthau's characters get to know each other and understand where the other is coming from, each develops a deeper appreciation of the other while still disagreeing with the other's viewpoint. Unfortunately this tension is never released as nothing ever happens between the two.

The plot really starts to sag when we find out that Clayburgh's ex-husband's company is implicated in a case that casts aspersions on Clayburgh's professional ethics. There are some elements of the real-life Whitewater case so perhaps the writers ran out of ideas and borrowed from the headlines in the newspaper. In any case this subplot is very uninteresting and the movie ends leaving you feeling it could have been so much better.

Still, its a movie worth watching if only for the first half. Its pretty lightweight so don't expect too much.

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