I know this was an early DePalma film, but yikes, this was terrible. If it didn't have DeNiro in it, I doubt anyone would ever want to see this nowadays. His performance shows promise of his future work. However, the film itself was like a bad Laugh-In episode. The writer and director were obviously high on drugs when they put this thing together. It was like they just threw a bunch of current events into a stew, unoriginal and derivative of so many other things. They probably thought they were doing an homage to the film Breathless but really badly done. The sexism in this film is offensive but true to the times. If you need to see why women and gay people needed to fight for their rights, this film shows you how it used to be when ignorant morons like these three guys represented the most common attitude. If you like references to the Kennedy assassination, the film Slacker by Linklater is much better.If you're a real low-brow fan who likes stupid comedy that is trying to be cool, you might like this film. If you've got higher standards, this film does not meet them.

I don't understand that this is supposed to be funny. Usually, I am a sucker for films that feature offbeat characters and non-linear story lines. I just didn't get it this time.Maybe, it's because that I am not familiar with life in the sixties, other than what I have read. Maybe, it's because I thought that this was going to be more of a violent film with extreme black humour. The humour is sort of black, but there is little to no violence here.De Niro is interesting to watch here and you can sense shades of his most famous character of Travis Bickle in some scenes. The scene in Vietnam works because it comes totally out of nowhere, but for the most part his character just seems goofy. I know that this kind of film was probably something that most people were not used to in the late sixties, but as more and more directors went counterculture in the 70s, this seems extremely boring by comparison and also kind of amateurish.I know that De Palma was still a rookie filmmaker here and this was probably some kind of experiment for him. It's a noble try but not very compelling.One more thing: Even for a sixties song, the tune played at the opening credits is probably one of the worst I have ever heard.

Greetings (1968) ** (out of 4) Early Brian DePalma film has three friends walking around NYC talking about various subjects including how to dodge the draft and the Kennedy assassination. Most reviewers gave this thing glowing reviews and I'd been wanting to see it for over a decade now but it turned out to be a major disappointment. There really isn't any plot, instead just small sequences about various issues. Some of this is funny but most of it isn't. Most notable for being Robert DeNiro's debut and the first film to get an X rating. This is an interesting film but it should have and could have been a lot better.

The most interesting thing about this early, cheap DePalma movie is DeNiro's performance, containing shades of his later work in Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy and Meet the Parents. In view of Greetings, and since it would appear the DeNiro didn't do the intense method preparation he became so famous for, we might wonder whether he actually isn't a very talented comedian who stumbled into method acting almost by accident (with a lot of hard work). Certainly his performance in Taxi Driver takes on a new dimension compared with his hilarious take on a Vietnam draftee pretending to be outrageously racist here. The careful, almost stilted speech he delivers straight to camera when he reads the sex book is reminiscent of the verbal fumbling of Rupert Pupkin. Indeed, his whole career is put into an entirely fresh perspective by this early, fresh performance, which is a must for anyone interested in his work.