A New York stockbroker refuses to cooperate in a large securities fraud case involving corruption on Wall Street, corporate banking world and mob infiltration. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jon Favreau, Spike Jonze and others
This is obviously not really being a movie with a real point to it but
it instead rather wants to be feel-good movie. It however for most part
fails as such because of its lacking story, that is lacking any good
emotions and handles its characters poorly.
The characters actually confused me. First of all, it was a strange
thing that at the beginning of this movie the Morgan Freeman character
was supposed to come across as a grumpy old man, old Clint Eastwood
character-style, so to speak but at the same time he also came across
as an humorous and soft guy. It didn't quite resonated with each other
and was somewhat confusing to watch. It was as if the film-makers
themselves didn't really knew what to do with the character or were too
afraid the viewers would distance themselves from the character and
this movie if its main character was being purely a grumpy old man, in
the first part of it.
But also the dynamics between all of the different characters doesn't
quite work out well or convincing enough. Why oh why did they had to
turn this into a love-story as well? It isn't being a convincing thing
anyway that a single mother would fall for a cripple 70-something year
old guy and it doesn't exactly gets made believable in this movie
either. I would had most definitely preferred it if the movie focused
on the friendship between the man and the family instead. The movie was
perfectly good and sweet when it did just that and nothing more than
just that.
The movie also most definitely has some pointless characters in it.
What was the point of having Fred Willard in this? And why did there
needed to be a mentally challenged character as well, that behaves like
an absolute moron, instead of a mentally challenged person. I hate it
when a movie does that. It's so offensive! Not just to mentally
challenged persons but also the audience in general. Perhaps they
though they would get some cheap laughs and drama out of it but I have
some news for them; it just doesn't work out very well.
Also, the Morgan Freeman character was supposed to be a mentor to one
of the young girls and I thought at one point that the movie would
entirely become just about that. However, by the end of the movie it
doesn't at all feels like he finished teaching the girl everything she
needed and wanted to know about writing. The movie definitely feels
incomplete when it comes down to some of its story lines. Who knows,
maybe an additional 15 or 20 minutes could had improved this movie
significantly.
It's always a dangerous thing to have young kids playing a significant
role in a movie like this. The danger is that these movies tend to get
overly sentimental and sappy and it's also risky since children often
aren't being the best at acting. But I have to say, as far as all these
things for this movie are concerned, it isn't being anything too bad.
The kid actors were good, though the writing for them was still
definitely lacking.
It's hard to care about anything that happens in this movie, since the
characters just aren't being handled good and interesting enough and
they aren't going through some interesting enough developments and
transitions. In that regard this movie truly fails and falls completely
flat as a genre movie, though it's not a movie that I hated watching,
so I'm still being somewhat mild with my rating for it.
Perhaps it was also thanks to the fine actors that appear in this
movie. It's never a punishment to watch Morgan Freeman acting in a
movie, even when the movie and his character aren't being all that
great or interesting.Virginia Madsen also did a great job, as did all
of kid actors, like I mentioned earlier on already.
Just not the best of most effective genre movie out there. Try again
Mr. Reiner!
