Movie Notes: Reign Over Me
= 3 stars
Starring Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Liv Tyler
Directed by Mike Binder
Synopsis
Ian Johnson (Don Cheadle) a successful Manhattan dentist, reconnects with his old college roommate Charlie (Adam Sandler) who lost his family in 9/11 and now spends his days in isolation, riding around New York on a scooter.
The Good
- Cheadle and Sandler are solid — nice to see a successful African American family without any mention of race. Sandler continues to stretch as an actor — this isn’t Click.
- Some worthy contemplation of the particularly male conflict between married and bachelor life — Charlie invites Ian to musical jams and plays video games.
- Pretty but nutty patient Donna (Saffron Burrows) and Angela psychiatrist (Liv Tyler) provide some up moments amid the gloom.
The Bad
- I found the lack of specifics regarding Charlie’s past nearly inexcusable, and there’s a sad feeling that the aftermath of 9/11 was used as a plot device to cover up failings in character development. Particularly exploitative are the film’s final moments following a trial, which rely more on our own personal memories of 9/11 than anything presented in the film itself.
- Liv Tyler as a psychiatrist? Um, yeah.
Conclusion
Although the 9/11 layer feels disingenuous, Sandler and Cheadle deliver. A passable rental if you’re prepared for a real bummer of a ride.
IMDB: Reign Over Me
Wikipedia: Reign Over Me Reign Over Me
Rotten Tomatoes: Reign Over Me Reign Over Me
Not the best movie I have ever seen but still not the worst. I think the actors are well chosen and the main idea is also not bad. To my mind the conflict might be developed a bit more deeper.
The only aspect of this movie i found to be just bad, was the 9/11 crash. That was clearly just to make the movie essayer to market. Some people really did watch their family members die, and i have not heard of anyone losing everything like charlie did. It was like they were trying to one up everyone who really did lose someone and help make money.
I just rewatched this movie. Well, at the second look the movie is not that bad. There are funny moments from time to time but of course like any other trailer this one shows only the best scenes of the movie. It always happens so that when you watch a trailer which seems quite interesting for you and after that you see the movie itself you get so much disspointed about the wasted time. Frankly speaking, I prefer reading movie annotations.