Movie Reviews - Crash, Mystic River, Reign Over Me

Been a busy boy and the movies are backing up.  Three this week.  Two I really liked and one that was...eh.

Let's get the disappointment out of the way first.

Reign Over Me - (2007) There were three little words that put this movie in a hole right from the start.  "Adam Sandler Movie".  I can't tell you why but Adam Sandler just makes me want to walk the other way.  Looking at his career I have to be honest I've watched two of his movies the whole way through ("Spanglish" and this one) and they were both OK.  I've seen parts of several others and hated what I saw.  So is it fair for me to dislike Sandler?  Absolutely not.  But what can I say?  He's part of what I call the "Moron Humor" brigade (Will Ferrell, Jim Carey et al).  The basic premise is that the portray characters who are idiots (not nerds or clutzes or the socially inept but full on morons) and this is supposed to be funny.  Hasn't ever worked for me.

So I'm not sure why I put this in my movie queue.  Maybe it was Don Cheadle's name.  I like pretty much everything I've seen Cheadle in.  Never the less here is this movie about a man struggling after the death of his family at 9/11 (Sandler) and his old college roommate (Cheadle) who tries to re-connect.  Sandler does a pretty nice job with Charlie the former dentist who has checked as far out as he can get without becoming catatonic.  He lives in his own little world and tries to reject the memory of his family and their deaths.  Cheadle's character gets sucked in trying to help his old friend sometimes at the expense of his own wife and family.  There's more than enough cast talent here (Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler, Donald Sutherland, Robert Klein, Melinda Dillon).  The problem is that the characters are too often cardboard cutouts.  Liv Tyler is utterly unbelievable as a psychiatrist.  Klein and Dillon are as one dimensional as Charlies in-laws as it may be possible to be.  And at the end Sandler just doesn't have the acting chops to pull off the final emotional scene of the movie.

Not bad.  But not good.

Rating - ** Save It For a Rainy Weekend

Mystic River - (2003) Now you want to see some acting chops?  Here's a movie for you.  Three Boston boyhood friends Jimmy (Sean Penn), Dave (Tim Robbins) and Sean (Kevin Bacon) are re-united as adults when Jimmy's daughter is murdered and Sean, now a homicide detective, gets the case.  Each of them has gone their own way since the day Dave was abducted by two pedophiles and held captive for four days.  Dave's never really recovered, Jimmy was the tough kid who became a tough adult with a criminal record and Sean became the cop.  There's enough emotional baggage between these three for a half dozen movies.

Penn and Robbins won Oscars for their work here.  The story twists and turns through a half dozen suspects and a fabulous supporting cast (Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney) under the direction of Clint Eastwood draws you right in.  Don't expect a Hollywood ending.  What you get is a great story told against the almost claustrophobic backdrop of lower middle class Boston.

Rating - **** Recommended

Crash - (2004) Here's the description of this movie from the folks at Netflix:

In post-Sept. 11 Los Angeles, tensions erupt when the lives of a Brentwood housewife, her district attorney husband, a Persian shopkeeper, two cops, a pair of carjackers and a Korean couple converge during a 36-hour period.

That description is criminal.  This movie is about race and bigotry.  It's about being human and American.  If the first 30 minutes of this movie don't make you sick to your stomach there's something wrong with you.  This movie is intense and brilliant.  The cast is outstanding headlining Sandra Bullock (who as the DA's wife is in just about 6 minutes of the movie but makes the most of them), Don Cheadle (DON CHEADLE!!!), Matt Dillon (who plays a cop that will just turn your stomach only to have him become a real person with real dimensions as the movie goes on), Brendon Fraser as perhaps the weakest of the main characters the DA.  Their stories intertwine in unexpected ways and it's fascinating to watch.  Must give this movie this credit as well.  There's one scene where I knew what was going to happen (a little girl gets shot) and I still gasped audibly when it happened.  The direction, cinematography and acting pulled it off.  A truly amazing, disturbing, thought provoking and challenging film.

Rating - **** Recommended