Reign Over Me

i really want to see it. it does look good. i liked in the first trailer that Cheadle only says "he lost his family in a plane crash", but in the commercial he says "he lost his family in 9/11". i've known for a while that Sandler was doing a 9/11 movie, but i wish they'd just hint at it in the film rather than coming out with it. maybe the movie will prove me wrong.
 
to me, this is Sandler's "find me guilty."

which is to say that, like Vin Diesel, sandler's getting a shot to do something serious (sans fart jokes) and this is his opporunity to prove himself as an actor to a more general audience. and to me, because resting on Billy Madison laurels isn't going to carry him forever.

as an aside, I like the Bob Dylan look he's got going.
 
The trailer looked good, but I haven't liked anything that Mike Binder, the writer/director, has done yet (The Upside of Anger, The Sex Monster), so I will remain skeptical. Cheadle is always great, though.
 
ZFarms said:
i've known for a while that Sandler was doing a 9/11 movie.
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I don't think that this is a 9/11 movie. Yes the reason for the story is about 9/11, but just because it has an element of 9/11 doesn't mean it's a "9/11 movie".
 
Sandler is excellent in Punch-Drunk Love, and Don Cheadle is one of my favorite actors of all time, so I'm interested. I saw a trailer for this not long ago and it looked good.
 
Go read my Man About Town thread. That was Mike Binder's last movie. It was terrible. This guy makes terrible choices. Trailer looks good though I have to admit.
 
Just saw this today. really powerful emotional stuff, i was happily surprised. highly recommended. just a couple times it was a bit much (to push emotion) or too coincidental (to connect characters) but i really dug it, choked me up a couple times as well.

oh and great tunes too! the Pearl Jam cover over the end credits is awesome!

Sandler now 3 for 3 in more serious fare, in my opinion (previously Punch Drunk Love and Spanglish). time to drop the silly stuff - he works best for me now in serious movies where he can bring some funny once in awhile. he was the perfect choice here, that Charlie character is all over the board emotionally.
 
c.g._eads said:
Go read my Man About Town thread. That was Mike Binder's last movie. It was terrible. This guy makes terrible choices. Trailer looks good though I have to admit.
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your man about town thread was the first thing i thought about. i dont care for binder either. and to whoever said this wasn't a 9/11 movie... gotta disagree just by the virtue that the impact of 9/11 extends far beyond the events of that day. now i haven't seen this film and likely won't. but if it does in fact deal wioth the emotional wreckage leveled at sandler's character, then this is indeed a 9/11 story. it's interesting, i was hoping a filmmaker would tackle the weeks that followed where nearly every american citizen was suffering from post-traumatic stress, and at the same time, everyone was much, much more sympathetic to one another. Living in LA, there was even a noticeable shift in attitude on the roads. people stopped laying into their horns in anger for a while. if no one is going to make a movie about it, i guess, i'll have to do it.
 
That's true.

Okay, I bit the bullit and saw this movie on the strength of the trailer, hoping that Binder's previous movies were a sereies of growing pains. Unfortunately there were some growing pains in this movie too. The ones in the pit of my stomach.

I would hesistate to call this movie "bad" but I certainly think it's damn near close. This film suffers from all of the Binder staples: wandering storylines, bad choices, chunks of time where absolutely nothing happens. I don't think Mike Binder is a bad director. But I do think he's a bad writer. This movie has a great setup and then, for the next 100 minutes, very little happens. On top of that, you're not even sure what the movie is about. What are these characters driving towards? What's their goal? And if they have no goal (like say... the characters in Swingers) at least have them do interesting things. Mulling around and laughing about old times for two hours doesn't cut it.

I don't even know where to start since this movie was so all over the place. At one point late (SPOILERS here - I guess) the movie actually turns into a Law And Order episode. And you're sitting there going, "huh?" If you can tell me what that case was about, I have a million dollars in my trunk for you.

There were two great things about this movie, however. The first was Saffron Burrows, the "lead" girl in the film. This beautiful creature has this haunting quality about her that keeps you obsessed every moment she's onscreen. The second is the movie's rather commercial-like promotion of one of the greatest video games of all time: "Shadow Of The Collosus". This is such an amazing game and it's a total director move to include it because of its cult-like status (I know about this game and you don't). I read a review which compared the game to 9-11 (in the game you're this little guy trying to take down these huge collosal-type monsters). If you look into it too much, I'm not sure how much it makes sense though (Sandler's family was on one of the planes that went into the tower. So he's playing a game in which he plays a character (a terrorist?) also trying to take down something huge (a tower)). And if Binder did this on purpose, it's one of the reasons I believe he's such a weak writer. It's like, "ooh, there's a metaphor here that matches up with 9-11 cause they're both trying to do the same thing. That's cool. I'm going to include it". But if you really look at it, why would Sandler want to play the role of a terrorist? Then again, I'm tempted to not give Binder any credit at all, and just assume he included the game because he liked it. Anyway, it's all very ironic because I'd have to say that if you have a choice of wasting 2 hours of your life watching Reign Over Me or 30 hours of your life playing Shadows Of The Collosus... please please please play Shadows.

p.s. I'm still not sure how the title relates to the movie.
 
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man you REALLY missed the boat (and the point) on this one.

the title of the movie is from a song by The Who, they were a big rock band from the 60's and 70's (Pearl Jam did a great cover of the song over the closing credits). it was explained and shown that Sandler's character had headphones on nearly the entire film, listening to "old" rock bands from earlier in his life before the tragedy with his family. The song itself's about a guy going through a crisis and going to an island alone. But you might not have known that.

There's no way that that game was in the movie just because its a cool game (I've never seen it before, never played it, but its pretty obvious the point and the title of that one). Binder isn't 15 years old, there are symbolic reasons for including that particular game.

***potential spoiler paragraph*** The court hearing was whether or not the state would put Sandler's character into the mental hospital for up to another year or not or if he was fit to continue living on his own. A pretty big deal. Not sure how you missed that one.

I could go on and on but there's no use, I think. Just not your cup of tea, got it, but it's far from the dull, confusion you're painting it to be. It's not perfect, but it's got two strong dramatic performances featuring unlikely old friends that help each other find their way. And it's an interesting way to tackle the whole 9/11 thing.
 
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I don't think I missed the boat. I understood the headphones thing. I understood he was reverting back to his life before the crisis. Hence his relationship with someone he was friends with from before the crisis. That to me actually seemed quite obvious. But after that there was really nothing there. What did Sandler acheive? How is he a better person? The storyline was so muddled and stagnant. Two guys hanging around each other for way too long with nothing happening. I think it is a mess. And I think most people who see the film will agree.

As for the court thing, I admit I checked out at that point. If you're honestly going to settle these character's storylines with a plot-forced court scene, you don't deserve my attention. It's lazy and a different movie. And as for the game, I think yo might be giving Binder too much credit. This is the man who gave us Man About Town with Ben Affleck, Blankman, and The Upside Of Anger. My big problem with him is that all his films seem to have the potential to be very volatile and yet they all end up so bland.

I'm still a little confused by the title. Are you saying that Reign Over Me was meant to represent all the songs from the 60s and 70s? Or that the title itself specifically meant something?
 
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