Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Reign Over Me

I may not have any sort of special knowledge, but damnit I do have the ability to at least explain my intentions every time I walk into a movie theater. The choices are that I either want the movie to be great, I want the movie to suck, or finally I walk in the correct way with no preconceived notions. I am telling you this because this time around was clearly option number one for Barone here. It is impossible to overcome the goodwill that I have towards Adam Sandler and think rationally when he actually moves outside his comfort zone. So that adds up to a completely biased thumbs-up.

So a serious Adam Sandler movie, huh? I’m game. The whole movie tilts on whether you will accept him in this role or not. There is no movie if you just dismiss him without a second thought. This is like a combination of all his best acting talents, mumbling to himself, an occasional spurt of violence, and just overall awkwardness. You know what? When it came time for me to me emotionally involved with his character, he had done his job. I believed him during all his breakdowns from the quiet storytelling to the slow build into a violent outburst. It was very nice to see him pull this whole thing off. Now of course it helps that instead of Shooter McGavin or Rob fricking Schnieder, the story is being told through the viewpoint of Don Cheadle. If I were to hazard a guess Don is a slight improvement in costar. Don is a man that can do anything that is required. This time around he is portraying a kind of quiet revolt over his life. Watching him enjoy hanging out with the clearly insane Sandler makes you wonder just how much his own life annoys him. At the same time one of the detriments of the movie is Jada Pinkett Smith as Cheadle’s wife. Her entire character exists just to show up and aggravate Don over the state of his life. It is a waste of her talent; I am fairly certain she could have done more than cook and clean and nag which is borderline something bad and should be labeled with a word ending in -ist. The only other negative is the whole sexual harassment plot, which was just laughable. Not funny laughable, no we were not that lucky expect for the scene with the footstool, just time-wasting awful. Still there were plenty of nice performances outside of the leads. The main one I want to point is Donald Sutherland. He appears for all of 5 minutes and still was able to outshine everyone else. Gotta love that Sutherland gene and how it projects power in any character. There was a lot of good here.


Yeah, this is an easy recommendation. There is just one simple caveat, I want Adam Sandler to succeed hence in my eyes he has. Whether or not it would hold up in a court of law, well there are many things I say that would crack under cross examination. Don’t be surprised when I turn states’ evidence. Reign Over Me was a nice diversion from the usual. It may have been downright depressing but it sill was well worth the price of admission.

8 out of 10

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