Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood's most mercurial actors, has been documenting his life and craft through film. He has amassed thousands of hours of footage, from home movies made with his brothers, to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster films like Top Gun and Batman. This raw and wildly original documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled look at what it means to be an artist.... (Full plot summary below)
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Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood's most mercurial actors, has been documenting his life and craft through film. He has amassed thousands of hours of footage, from home movies made with his brothers, to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster films like Top Gun and Batman. This raw and wildly original documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled look at what it means to be an artist.
Leave your thoughts about Val.
| Film ThreatLorry KiktaThe film has a whimsical surreality to it, just like the actor himself. |
| CNNBrian LowryVal Kilmer joins the ranks of celebrities that fastidiously documented their lives via video, then shared that in documentary form. But Val feels more deeply personal and fascinating than most, catching its star in the wake of a terrible illness and exploring the "difficult" label he bore as an actor, one whose career choices didn't always serve him well. |
| The Associated PressMark KennedyThanks to Kilmer’s relentless drive to document things, Val is a remarkably intimate film and a moving one, too. For a performer who has come off as chilly and difficult, this doc doesn’t counter those perceptions as much as explain them. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDespite his health problems and a career that carried as many setbacks as triumphs, Kilmer comes across as a self-deprecating, thoughtful, likable and almost jovial figure with a wicked sense of humor and a deep appreciation of artists, writers, poets, actors, thinkers. |
| Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternThe result is a documentary that keeps drawing you in, even when you think it’s keeping you at a certain distance, a one-of-a-kind portrait of a one-of-a-kind artist who, through good times and dreadful ones, has remained devoted to his art. |
| IGNZaki HasanVal is a refreshingly candid documentary that uses its title star’s impressive array of archival footage to delve into larger questions about the nature of stardom itself. |
| Time OutPhil de SemlyenMany actors hold their secrets and their craft close; Kilmer throws his out to the universe. |
| Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDirectors Leo Scott and Ting Poo are armed with seemingly endless self-shot footage for Val, a moving, fascinating portrait of the actor. But disarming is a better word for how Kilmer, reputedly a “difficult” actor, comes off. |
| The TelegraphTim RobeyThe film could have been an indulgent memoir, a scrapbook of a major (if stunted) leading-man career. But seeing so much of it through Kilmer’s own viewfinder gives it both focus and poignancy. |
| The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenThe helmers don’t aim to be comprehensive. They achieve something better: a film that’s agile and alive — fitting for a portrait of a man who is driven to make art, however he can. |
