A blistering, full throttle descent into madness that manages to make a bunch of terrible men yelling over each other extremely entertaining. Sandler is a force in this film – you can see every one of this character’s impulses eating away at him from the inside, driving his every thought and action. It’s an incredible performance, especially from a body language perspective, its own high wire pressure cooker imbued with just the right amount of tragic comedy. Julia Fox holds her own and then some opposite him, clearly understanding both the ridiculous and brutally sad sides of the story in tandem. Daniel Lopatin’s score is brilliant, per usual.
For all the talk about how this is an anxiety-inducing, nonstop thriller , the Safdies also seem intent on painting a sobering picture of a life and family in chaos. The general theme behind it is something we’ve seen time and time again, but from the beginning, there’s such a clear disdain for Howard coming from all fronts – especially within his family – that it manages to work. This is not to say that the story doesn’t run a bit too far up its own ass, because it certainly does. It would’ve been much tighter and better had it clocked in at under 2 hours, but it definitely drags in the middle and gets very repetitive at times; there’s only so much the performers can do, and only so many scenarios they can get themselves into. Some scenes seem less driven by character and more by a general dictionary definition of *intense scene.*
But thankfully, the film finds new legs in its final stretch, delivering a series of impeccably crafted scenes that kicks off with Sandler and (a wonderful) Garnett sitting across from each other at a table. This scene is the film in a nutshell, and it sets into motion a crescendo that is thrilling in a way unlike anything else I’ve seen this year. Where the film thrives is in a state of being unpredictable, yet also driven by a sense of inevitability – it’s an ambitious, imperfect, strange, and yet wholly compelling piece of entertainment that is in a perpetual state of careening off a cliff.
GRADE: B+
Polar Bears Watch TV 
I appreciate this flick but couldn’t connect with it like most people have. I do love the visual style of it.
totally understandable! it’s def not for everyone