I don't know what prompted the praise for this movie. Maybe it was a forerunner of a genre where the offbeat vignettes of a disaffected generation were to reflect normal day-to-day reality.<br /><br />The fact is I really enjoy the offbeat and quirky and dark comedies, but give me a break - in other words, give me some sort of plot or character development. Is that too much to ask? Although this film has a few amusing moments and some well-observed takes on the not quite sane, I could experience the same by taking a walk downtown or riding the subway. There are many quasi-intellectual ideas raised by many of the characters, but to what end? Is the point of the film that there is no point, and if so, what's the point of that?<br /><br />And I am to believe that an elderly store owner is going to take a spaced-out youth who just held him up at gunpoint under his wing and treat him as a son? The film does this in a 5-minute sequence and leaves us bemused and frustrated - and leaves the characters, like all the others in the film, to disappear into oblivion.<br /><br />I much preferred Linklater's later film, "SubUrbia" - it too was about young people with no particular goals, but it was about something: the characters had depth, interacted, and went through significant explorations and discoveries. I'm glad I saw it before "Slackers" because otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. <br /><br />Rating: 2 out of 10.