Completey and utterly unfunny performances by Oldman and Roth. Stoppard may be a brilliant playwright but a filmmaker he is not, having botched a great potential for his play on the big screen. We get instead a literal and utterly uncinematic treatment of his much-touted play. Watching the first fifteen minutes of "heads, heads, heads, heads, heads, heads, heads, heads, heads," is colossal torture, like status elipticus. It's suited to the stage maybe but can never play well on the big screen. Having hopes it might pick up, that was dashed as the entire film seem to lack any momentum or any type of cinematic sensibility whatsoever. A classic blunder of failing to recognize two different mediums. Don't take my word for it, watch it yourself and see.