Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17314 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-05-31
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 95 minutes

DVD Description
Eli Wurman (Academy Award winner Al Pacino) is coming apart at the seams. A legendary New York PR man whose glory days are far behind him, Wurman is lost in the blur of media, celebrity and politics. But when a seemingly routine incident, involving a temperamental starlet (Tea Leoni) and a world-famous movie star (Ryan O'Neal) leads him into the murky world of political conspiracy and murder, Eli ignores his deteriorating health and pours his manic energies into pleading, seducing, cajoling and recruiting Manhattan's movers and shakers to come out and support his cause. In the end, Eli discovers one undeniable truth: it's not who you are that matters, it's who you know.

Special Features

• Sundance Festival press conference with actors Al Pacino and Richard Schiff, Director Daniel Algrant and Writer Jon Robin Baitz
  
• Cast interviews with Tea Leoni, Ryan O'Neal and Richard Schiff
  
• Trailer

Synopsis
Al Pacino transforms himself into former all-star publicist Eli Wurman in Dan Algrant's PEOPLE I KNOW. Wurman is a southern-born one-time mover and shaker who is at the end of his rope--and his career. His last major client, Cary Launer (Ryan O'Neal), is an Oscar-winning actor who has Wurman clean up his messes for him; in this case, Wurman has to get drug-addled television host Jilli Hopper (Tea Leoni) out of jail and back to California. But a detour leads Wurman into a secret sex-and-drug den filled with the rich and powerful--and also gets him involved in murder.
PEOPLE I KNOW shares its fast-paced, winner-take-all, back stabbing world with SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, which also tore apart New York City's hot publicity world. The eclectic cast does a fine job, with Pacino and Leoni standing out. Kim Basinger has a supporting role as Victoria Gray, Wurman's former sister-in-law who offers him the chance to retire to a quiet life on a ranch, but Wurman first has to pull off a politically controversial fundraiser that is making a lot of people upset.

Customer Reviews

Pacino Versatility
A 'way out' film that guides you through the impossible jungle of public relations and the publicity agent. The brilliance of the film is the apparent trite yet sharp and angular content..The agony of trying to differentiate truth from lies and fantasy is conveyed by the superb script and excellent camera work. ..Al Pacino in a unique role plays his part of the broken and disillusioned publicity agent to perfection. Attempting to expose the layers of truth and lies that make up our everyday lives makes for a riveting and thought provoking film. The concept was a risky gamble that paid off. It will become a cult film.

David Turner (London UK)

Aging American actors lack the grace of their British counterparts
This film is about a period that has come to an end, a complete end, before the earthquake, mudslide and volcanic eruption known as the Twin Tower Terrorist Attack or 9/11 for short. New York politics, and beyond American politics seen through the eyes of a mediocre, Jewish PR agent who is losing his main customer and who is still giving time to Afro-American causes not understanding that they don't want and they don't need white Jewish good-doing benevolent liberals to take care of them. They have come of age and start understanding they have to take care of themselves. On the other side, the supposedly liberal white politicians have become so corrupted that they cannot stand upright any more and they just want to lie low and disappear from the public eye before it's too late. A new generation has not come out of the wings yet and they are more or less obliged to last a little longer. The subject of the film is that trite and that superficial if not superfluous, and the final murder does not add anything to this rather thin plot. Yet the film is a rather good film because Al Pacino is acting his part so well that he really looks the part of the poor absolutely conscious old man who is doing one more gig before going out for ever to some solitary and telephone-deprived barn on a Virginia farm. Is he overacting as some think? I don't think so. In fact he is surrounded by actors who are second zone as compared to him, so that what is good acting looks like overacting against that background. The real question is then why did Al Pacino accept to act in a film with no one next to him that could compete with his long experience and his phenomenal professional profile? No one can answer this question, except Al Pacino himself. But that is often what happens with aging actors. They are only proposed films that are made for them individually so that they end up shining bright in a dark alley and blinding us at the same time instead of making other actors sparkle and glow.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

movies that blow
hmmm.Not sure about this one.Al pacino's performance as usual is excellent but the script is lacking in depth and clarity.As a big al pacino fan i was expecting alot more.If you are like me and wanted to see pacino in latest film...skip this one unless u like falling asleep during films