The Family Man (2000) Review

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(More customer reviews)If, like me, you find most Hollywood "love" stories about as warm and romantic as a cold sleepless night in Seattle, then you're in for a surprise. Not since Casablanca have I enjoyed a love story as much, and though they both end at the airport, the similarity ends there. This one is about marriage, family, and the connections and sacrifices that make marriage, parenthood and yes, love, worthwhile.
Nicolas Cage plays a harried but driven Wall Street executive playboy who wakes one day to find himself trapped in a life he never wanted, married to the woman he abandoned years ago. It's a living nightmare at first, but the harder he tries to escape it, the more he begins to see that there are values and rewards that he somehow missed in his previous executive penthouse lifestyle. By the end of the movie, he's learned a lesson he will never forget.
An unexplainable fantasy in the tradition of "Groundhog Day", you soon find yourself accepting the unexplainable, even as the protagonist himself realizes there is no easy escape from his new reality, and learns to work within it's framework. After all, life throws all of us some unexpected "curves", and like the protagonist in this modern day Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Suburban Bowling League, we can become better people by accepting and embracing the crazy things life puts us through in the name of love. Chalk one up for old-fashioned family values in a feel-good movie with a message, served up without the sappy cliches.
Put the kids to bed early (The Family Man deals with some adult issues, and much as I enjoyed it, it would need a little editing before I would consider it a family film!), and just the two of you watch this one together with a bowl of popcorn and a glass of wine - you'll be glad you did!

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Colors (1988) Review

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(More customer reviews)Hailed by critics as one of the more important films of the 80s, "Colors" nonetheless is a fairly straightforward tragedy--there's no other direction for the story to take. Robert Duvall plays a veteran police officer working L.A.'s mean streets; hothead Sean Penn joins his CRASH anti-gang unit, predictably testing the elder partner's patience and reserve as he just tries to keep the peace and make it through that final year to retirement. Both actors bring more depth to their cliched roles than might be expected, playing off each other surprisingly well, even in moments where they are given little more to do than react. But "Colors" offers no real answers to anything. The cops are presented mostly as well-armed zookeepers, while the gang members, blessed with youth and health but not much brains, run violently about, making the story mostly a series of aimless confrontations. Art imitating life? Maybe. But careful audiences might feel they've been bamboozled, despite director Dennis Hopper's rather lofty take on it. With some scenes that are genuinely tragic and gripping--the shooting of an unarmed suspect and the movie's final scene, to name two--and a romantic subplot that deserved more time--Maria Conchita Alonso seems to just get warmed up as a bad girl flirting with the notion of being good--"Colors" seems to have more going for it than it really does. Watch it mainly for the performances and the suggestion of complexity.

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Controversial film about the conflict between police and the street gangs in Los Angeles.Genre: Feature Film-Action/AdventureRating: RRelease Date: 2-OCT-2001Media Type: DVD

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Brooklyn's Finest (2010) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Brooklyn's Finest" is a remarkably entertaining and well-acted police drama from director Antoine Fuqua, who also directed the also outstanding police drama, "Training Day."
The film focuses on three very different Brooklyn cops over the course of a week. Richard Gere plays Eddie, a hardened veteran just a week away from retirement. He has nightmares, he's separated from his wife, and he's just biding his time until his retirement. Ethan Hawke, the hero of "Training Day, plays a narcotics detective desperate to finance a new home to give a better life to his wife, children, and twins on the way. Don Cheadle plays Tango, an undercover cop, who is so deep undercover that he forgets who he really is, and to make matters worse, he now has to setup a high-level drug dealer who saved his life while he was undercover in prison.
These examples of Brooklyn's Finest are all living on the edge, and they all go over the edge one way or another. The acting from these three is superb. Their performances along with Wesley Snipes as the drug dealer, Brian F. O'Byrne as Hawkes' best friend and partner, Shannon Kane as Eddie's hooker with a heart of gold, and a number of others, make this a very enjoyable, but powerfully sad and tragic film.

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Something of a genre homecoming, Antoine Fuqua's latest film once again finds him delving into the gritty, brutal realm of cops and crooks—as he did in Training Day. Tango is an undercover officer on a narcotics detail that forces him to choose between duty and friendship. Having been to hell and back, he wants out, but the powers that be won't let him quit. Family-man Sal is a detective tempted by greed and corruption. He can barely make ends meet, and now his wife has an illness that threatens the life of their unborn twins. Eddie is nearing retirement age and has long since lost his dedication to his job as a cop. He wakes up every morning trying to come up with a reason to go on living...and he can't think of one. Fate brings the three men to the same Brooklyn housing project as each takes the law into his own hands. Crosscutting between multiple subplots, Brooklyn's Finest unfolds violently and passionately as coiled, constantly roving cinematography contributes a measure of unease to the underworld action.

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