Ever since Frank Sinatra christened Marlon Brando "Mumbles" on the set of Guys and Dolls, inarticulate and incomprehensible speech has been a mainstay of American cinema, particularly among Method actors. David Jenkins of The Guardian has had enough, and it's Philip Seymour Hoffman who has pushed him to the breaking point.
Jenkins' snippy piece begins: "So there they are, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Albert Finney, emoting like nobody's business after they've buried the woman who was, respectively, their mother and their wife, in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. There's a silence, and then Hoffman speaks — whereupon Finney slaps him. It's clearly a crucial moment, this explosion of violence, but I've yet to talk to anyone who could hear what Hoffman actually said."
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