DjohnsonC-3

Great movie

3097 days ago Guest Hilarious!, January 26, 2004 Reviewer: A viewer I really enjoyed this movie which shows that a lot of good movies are not allowed a fair chance in the theaters. I believe this film would have done pretty good at the box office...oh well. Anyway this is a delightful little story about an uptight government assassinator Eddie ( Courtney B. Vance ) who wants to get out of the business of killing. His boss, Middleman ( Kathleen Turner ) is against the idea and keeps sending him on jobs he doesn't want to do. Both of these actors had wonderful chemistry. Anyway, Eddie agrees to a blind date set up by Middleman. Thinking he's meeting a woman more his standards, his date turns out to be Lois ( Regina King ) and Eddie is not at all impressed. Lois is beautiful, funny and a great catch but she's flighty and gets on Eddie's nerves. This is when the humor truly kicks in. Lois assumes a slight stalking personality. She pops up everywhere Eddie is and no matter how hard he tries to resist her, he can't. Eddie's ready to throw her over a building once she botches up a very important hit. By this point it's obvious he's fallen for her. Eddie does everything in his power not to admit he likes Lois. It's plain to see he does. What man in his right mind wouldn't want Regina King? Anyway, we soon find out the reason for this is because he doesn't want to admit he may fall in love with her. This poses two huge problems for Eddie because: 1. He's sworn off sex for religious reasons. 2. He's a professional killer and he's not sure how Lois will take that. Once Lois is set up by Eddie's former boss ( Jason Alexander )who has now turned crooked, Eddie reveals his profession to Lois. She leaves him only to come back to him and admit she's fallen in love. The two get married and end up comically fighting for their lives against a team of ' bad ' guys. This film was equipped with good dialogue, interesting characters and lots of laughs. This film may be hard to get your hands on but when you do it is worth it. I hope this little gem doesn't eventually disappear into the valley of ' out-of-print ' films. This is a genuine comedy that needs to stick around. If you're lucky you may catch it on Cinemax like I did.

I laughed all the way through this film. Even though some of the scenes ran on longer than needed, the story, acting and direction of this film is dead on. What is also very well done is the funny but revealing way in which race is brought into discussions in matter of fact ways. This is not a race bashing film but a film that is aware of the uniqueness that everyone processes and how all nationalities have the same inherent bias toward themselves and each other but must overcome it if any real change can come about. Saying that, the film is a riot. Funny throughout and a very good film for kids and adults.

The lead actor is beyond convincing as a wannabe black kid who has to come around to understanding what real responsibility means. He's hilarious!!

The guy needs his own television show! Now! But what is most revealing is the direction. Small but significant little gems of pure hilarity is in the direction of this film and I give it a clear 9/10. Great stuff.

Mamet is clever but even this one is not worth the time. When angry white men (and women) make moves showing angry white men, you don't question the reason why it was written so many years ago but you do question why the producers decided to make it in 2005. A little dated and a little one note. At the end of the day, making this film from a play and then note really creating no subplots or diversion such as full characters gives us the feeling were watching a play but it also shows that Mamet was too lazy to update his play into a movie. Too bad.

Love the Reference from The Verdict. Mamet used the same law firm Frank Gavin was fired from in The Verdict with the firm Macy works for in Edmond. Clever.

I have been reading many reviews about this film for weeks so I was anxious to see it. I was hoping for something new.

There seems to be a very prominent but hard to overlook attraction by young, talented, new white filmmakers taking up the subjects of urban black and Latino lives as fodder for either liberal expression, societal outrage or possible fetishism. From "Maria Full of Grace", "GirlsTown", "Everyday People" (HBO), "Quinceanera" now "Half Nelson", we have story lines looking at underprivileged black and Latino folk through a prism that seems to be very similar. In these stories there is a little sadness, some anthropological observation, a fair amount of non judgmental characterizations and realism but as independent and daring as these films claimed to be, they are no better than watching "Dangerous Minds", a studio film of a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad at you. Most black filmmakers seem to be preoccupied these days with the three p's-Tyler Perry, Tyrese and taking the money so it's hard to complain when other filmmakers find the stories of black and Latino culture such a rich place to be.

So here comes "Half Nelson" as the latest in this stream. I really wanted to like this one but it falls into the same unfortunate traps as the others. I'm watching this film and seeing the absent of any black adult with any speaking part with a positive image for this young girl to benefit from. Ryan Gosling is a gifted and natural artist and Epps is quite good and real but the choices the writer and director make are choices that show where they are coming from. Dan brings in the light because the lives of the kids in his class are in the dark. With Epps' mom working so much are we to believe Epps is not loved? Hard to know. Her father is not around but apparently without a voice or point of view and dogged by her mother. Her brother is in prison but he doesn't seem to be evolved enough to realize that he must do differently when he gets out. And then there's Mackie's character, a good guy but he's selling product in the community. The man's a businessman but not quite the positive role model you'd like to have any kid look up to.

The polyglot nature of our world gives us all configurations of relationships in how people find family, opportunity and friendship but I never found what Dan is going through in his addiction particularly profound or revealing. Sure he's high half the time, sure he's aimless and passionate like a lot of aimless and educated young white and black folk who don't know what to do and how to affect change in this world but when you make a movie and lay your hero in a world he knows little about, give the world a little more credit. Switch the situation around. take out the drugs and go back thirty years and you have "To Sir with Love". The only difference, Poitier's character had a chip on his shoulder not a monkey on his back and the kids he was dealing with and Lulu's character particularly didn't want to take that chip off, she wanted to learn from him. I don't know what this 13 year old learns from Dan. Maybe she's learned how to take care of a guy who needs someone to take care of him, which really sets her up for an unfortunate job title in her future. We don't know what she dreams about for her future. We have no idea. She sure has not learned much about the civil rights movement in what is shown in the film. He is trying to impress on the kids to expand their minds in a semi Socratic educational style but these kids are sponges and a point of view from a teacher is not actually teaching. I want to know the filmmaker's point in making this film. I'm really curious. That's my two cents.