Mr. Arkadin

This comment refers to the comprehensive version. This film is a sadness. There is a great opportunity for Orson Welles to remodel the legendary character Charles Foster Kane because Mr. Arkadin is the first character for him that was of resemblance. Welles insteads side steps any ambition and tells a sloppy genre story. The film has more interest for plot revelations than anything else. The Cahiers Du Cinema critics praised the film for its unprofessionalism that made it feel more authentic than other films. That unprofessionalism wasn't a step back to Italian Neo-Realism or something meaningful, but just a lack of competance to tell a well constructed story. The plot has too many loops and holes to be good and Welles films the story very plainly. The film is more notable for on location shooting than any conceptual ideas. It doesn't help that half of the lines are as laughable as they are implausible. Welles has no sense of rythm or competance to tell a thriller of this kind. The film would have been better in the hands of Jules Dassin. Mr. Arkadin is as far from Citizen Kane as Welles could get.