Reign Over Geek

I have on my desk a slew of interesting movies, each one I plan on giving a review to... Beowulf, the movie I mentioned in my AVH review Monster, and two movies I plan to review tomorrow that have not yet hit the streets on DVD; The Great Debaters and Teeth. In all honesty I am looking forward to Teeth, I heard about it a while ago while it was running the indie film festivals. But for tonight I am reviewing...

Reign Over Me

The numbers for this particular movie are difficult, as it did not play in all theaters nation wide. It only played in 1,671 theaters when it opened, grossing 7.5 Million for the first weekend, and going on to make 19.7 Million national, and 1.2 Million international.

I want to start off by saying that I absolutely love when comedy actors play a drama, it always puts a smile on my face and always lets us see how much range they truly have. Robin Williams did this in Final Cut, Insomnia, and One Hour Photo, Jim Carrey does it in The Number 23, and Adam Sandler does it in Reign over Me.

That being said when I first started to see trailers for this movie I groaned. I thought it was going to be a movie that sort of exploited 9/11 for the plot like World Trade Center, or United 93. Thats not to say that 9/11 should be barred from movie plot, but it seems cheap, as to attack a movie like that would be akin to attacking the actual events themselves.

But this movie... Does not do that. The movie, for those who don't know, is about two men... Alan Johnson, a family man and dentist meets up with his old high school friend Charlie Fineman, a man who has lost his family and life in the events of 9/11 who now suffers from Post Traumatic Stress syndrome. The movie follows the two men's friendship as they lean on each other and eventually make steps to help Charlie face his problems and gain his life back.

The movie does not dwell so much on 9/11, it truly feels like it is simply a movie about two friends who need each other to help solve their problems. This movie also has some truly heart wrenching scenes as Charlie tries to cope with what happened and attempt to overcome his illness.

Adam Sandler does an amazing job in this movie, really showing his skill as an actor. And his chemistry with Don Cheadle makes the friendship between Alan and Charlie look so genuine. The struggle as Charlie attempts to get help for his PTS is portrayed so well, it's actually yugs at your heart to see the pain in his eyes...

The movie is great, it's powerful, deep, and has many laughs as well. You may find yourself laughing out loud in one scene, and then brought to tears in another. A great film for those who love to watch movies with real people and real emotions in them.