It Takes A Lot Of Flack: The Family Man Is Sappy And Predictable, But Worthwhile.

The Good: Acting, Writing, Directing
The Bad: Pacing, Somewhat predictable
The Basics: The Family Man is a good film, though the pacing is choppy and the idea is hardly original.


The Family Man is a surprisingly good film given the rather overdone nature of the plot. It's pretty much your basic "what if you had a chance to see the consequences of one of your major decisions from the other perspective" plot. We watch the film with the basic understanding that we have an idea of what will happen: the protagonist will see the other perspective and be affected by it. I watched The Family Man on DVD and before watching it, I read the "production notes" on the film, it said that film seeks not to make a judgment, saying which decision was right or wrong, but rather illustrate how they were simply different decisions. While the film almost explicitly states that, it doesn't live up to it and that's probably the only real disappointment of the film.

Jack Campbell was offered a job in London in 1987. His partner, Kate Reynolds, had a job still in the States. So, Jack got on a plane intending to be gone for a year. Thirteen years later, he's successful and alone and he's offered, against his will, the opportunity to see the consequence of the decision to leave. Jack finds himself married to Kate and with two children, living in suburbia. Jack takes time getting used to new friends, a new job (he goes from upper management to tire salesman), and a new car. He doesn't appear nearly as shocked as one might suspect. From then on, he experiences life as a father and tire salesman until his "glimpse" ends.

The strength of the film is in its writing. While The Story of Us (reviewed here!) was made annoying by loud, long fights that took up most of the film, The Family Man is enhanced by a tension in the romance between Jack and Kate. They have some disagreements and they are emotional. The writing on those exchanges of dialogue reads as very real. Jack is surrounded by people that sound like real people. His sudden change in status is mostly realistic. Despite his flamboyant anniversary celebration with his wife, there's a moment when he must forego an $800 bottle of wine and instead get "red wine, by the glass" and that moment is quite genuine.

Films like this rely on the strength of their characters. The only character flaw here is that it's never explained what went wrong the first time through. That is, if Jack was supposed to be gone for only a year, what happened in his relationship with Kate in that year that ended up ruining it? That's never explained and it makes the end of the film quite hard to swallow. Jack and Kate, otherwise, are very well defined. They work. The peripheral characters do enough.

The weakness of the film is in its pacing more than anything else. The nature of the film makes it difficult to do something truly new or original and while The Family Man has moments where it seems to accomplish just that, but then it - for one reason or another - fails to live up to its potential. So, the beginning goes at an appropriate pace, it has a strong middle, a terribly slow late middle and then a well-paced (if thematically unsatisfying) end. This means that the film does not flow organically. In the end, that - more than any plot points - ruins the film consistency. When a film doesn't flow, it ruins the experience.

In this case, The Family Man suffers from pacing issues. It doesn't suffer much because of the acting, writing and the view of the film. I was surprised by how good the directing was. The film looks good, the camera angles flatter the movement, for the most part. A satisfying, if not extraordinary, film.

For other films with intriguing family dilemmas, please visit my reviews of:
The Spitfire Grill
Ordinary People
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

7/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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The Ultimate Collector Gets His Prize In "The Most Toys!"

The Good: Moments of humor, Well-acted, Interesting characters
The Bad: Predictable plot, Special effects
The Basics: A mediocre episode is saved by excellent acting when Data is captured by a ruthless collector.


Whenever most shows do a kidnapping plot, you have to figure it has a predictable plot. Unless you've heard something about a main character leaving, odds are the abduction will be resolved by the end of the episode. Still, some shows do abduction episodes well; "Ascension" (reviewed here!) in the second season of The X-Files comes immediately to mind. So too does "The Most Toys." For viewers watching the episode on video, the producers of the show ask the viewer to believe that the crew would lose Data.

"The Most Toys" finds the Enterprise negotiating with Kivas Fajo, a space pirate, for a substance to cure a water contamination on a nearby colony. In the process, Lt. Commander Data is killed while transporting the cargo when his shuttle explodes. The Enterprise leaves in mourning to rescue the colony. And Data wakes up on Fajo's ship, a prisoner. But he's not entirely a prisoner. He is a part of a collection that includes the Mona Lisa, a rare baseball card, and an endangered alien animal among other things. Fajo expects Data to live and be happy in his menagerie. Data, naturally, resists while the Enterprise slowly figures out all might not be as it seems.

Despite the plot being predictable in its resolution, it is a worthwhile story. For all of the time StarFleet spends reasoning out if Data is a sentient life form or a commodity, it makes sense others would come to the conclusion that he is a piece of machinery that is invaluable as a collectible. It makes sense. Too infrequently in the Star Trek franchise is value associated with the technology, objects and machinery of the universe that has been established.

As fans of Star Trek The Next Generation, viewers became accustomed to viewing Data as a viable individual, a character who was indispensable to the stories of the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-D. In "The Most Toys," the view of Data is turned on its head by Fajo. Fajo recognizes the simple truth that in a galaxy where virtually anything can be duplicated by a machine (the replicator), the most valuable things in the universe would be those things that cannot be created by a machine. The endangered specie in Fajo's collection is particularly clever as a concept for such a menagerie. Data is as well.

What makes the episode worth coming back to is that the writers take a fairly simple plot and make it a character developing episode. Data takes a step toward being more human when he essentially learns to kill in self defense. As he attempts to escape, he bonds with one of Fajo's crew and they begin to conspire together. Data here overcomes the limitations of his lack of emotion and instead capitalizes on his cunning. Data's attempts to escape are interesting to watch and the machinations that keep him captive are certainly character-building. Moreover, the timing of his unfortunate growth to kill in self defense comes at a very realistic moment (i.e. when no one else's life may be leveraged against his own). Data also illustrates a selfless quality that foreshadows future acts of self-sacrifice by the character.

It's a step of growth that comes at an appropriate time.

Moreover, the acting is worthwhile. Spiner plays Data with his usual dispassion and for the first time, Data must resist someone he is not able to physically overpower. That makes for good drama. Spiner has an almost claustrophobic quality to him in this episode as he is ordered to sit in a chair and he attempts passive resistance. Spiner has to make Data stiff, limp and essentially dead, alternatively and he rises to the acting challenge without making it feel like an actor who is going through a number of acting exercises.

The binding force of the episode is Saul Rubineck who plays Kivas Fajo. He has a wistful quality to him that he brings to the role, making Fajo a strange combination of funny little man and menacing trader. He alone makes it worth coming back to repeatedly. Unlike most of the straightlaced regulars, Rubineck adds an element of whimsy and weirdness to the show that shakes up the chemistry and instantly creates a memorable character.

The main cast does fine with its half of the plot, slowly figuring out that the planetary disaster might not be what it seems and that Data might not be dead. Sirtis and Dorn have a great Worf/Troi scene that both play with an emotive resonance that neither character has thus far displayed. As well, the writers are quite clever with such things as Fajo adding the precise amount of the raw elements that comprise Data to the shuttlecraft in order to stymie our heroes for a while. That attention to detail is nice.

There's not much here for the non-fan of Star Trek The Next Generation; it's a simple abduction story. Then again, there's not much to complain about, either. Sometimes, that's the most we can ask for.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Complete Third Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the third season by clicking here!
Thanks!]

6/10

For other Star Trek franchise film, episode or DVD set reviews, please visit my index page, where they are nicely organized for readers!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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Unforgiven Is An Average Western Revenge Story.

The Good: Decent acting, Decent plot development
The Bad: Very average plot and character arcs, Light on DVD bonus features.
The Basics: An average film and an average Western, Unforgiven is entertaining, but is not extraordinary, even on DVD.


I've never been much of a fan of Western films, in fact it is almost surprising how much I enjoyed The Adventures Of Brisco County, Jr. (reviewed here!). So, it is only because of my current writing project that I actually sat down and watched Unforgiven. I've generally not been a fan of Westerns because they tend to depict women in a pretty negative light and I tend to find that less-than-entertaining. I'd rather not watch films where women are treated so poorly. I tend to not to be into pretty monolithic character arcs where the villains are villains and the protagonists might have a dark past, but they're working on making right with the world.

Unforgiven is just that type of movie. I thought the movie would be like a Western version of Payback and it largely was. This is a film where the hero, Will, is characterized as a cold-blooded killer in the opening scrawl, but whose first appearance in the movie is anything but. The sheriff, the supposed good guy, is corrupt and there is little moral ambiguity in his brutality. This is very much a typical Western with growling men, women who depend upon them and plenty of gunplay. And it's all right - I might even enjoy watching it again at some point - but Unforgiven seems to trade more on the novelty of Clint Eastwood returning to Western films (and directing it) than anything truly original.

Two years after his wife dies of smallpox, William Munny, is living his life as a reformed killer and hired gun. In Big Whiskey, Wyoming, a pair of cowboys is at the local bordello when one of the men goes psychopathic on his hooker and begins cutting her up. When the local sheriff, Little Bill, demands the brothel's owner be given seven horses from the two men, the women are furious. They put out notice that they will pay $1,000 to anyone who kills the two outlaws who cut up their friend and co-worker. A young wannabe outlaw, The Schofield Kid, arrives at Will's house and convinces him to join him to avenge the wounded prostitute. Will goes south, gets his friend Ned and the two reunite with the nearly-blind Schofield Kid.

In Big Whiskey, Little Bill takes on the famed outlaw English Bob, in the process impressing Bob's biographer, W.W. Beauchamp. While working to build his own house, he learns of the posse gunning for the two cowboys and he decides he must get involved for the good of Big Whiskey. But as Will, Ned and The Schofield Kid close in on their quarries, they come to realize their biggest liabilities might be their own desires to reform or gain notoriety.

Unforgiven is not a bad movie, but it is also in no way an extraordinary film in terms of plot or character development, nor of cinematography. Instead, this is a by-the-numbers revenge tale set in the Old West of the United States where the characters are shady, everyone has a past and virtually everyone has a story that involves a history with gun fighting. Will and Ned are former partners, so when Will realizes he is so out of practice, he immediately looks up Ned to take on the same task of revenge-for-money that he is on. And because it is That Type Of Movie where moral ambiguity reigns and men are generally monolithic, Ned easily takes "an advance" from one of the hookers, despite being married.

The plot is very formulaic and basic; this is a hunt story where the characters hunt for men who have done wrong and, in the process, find themselves hunted by the law themselves. Unforgiven takes time for a pointless divergence with the whole English Bob story and all this does is make absolutely clear that Little Bill, in addition to being as pretty crummy carpenter, is a pretty lousy sheriff. In addition to seeming like the English Bob story just distracts from the main narrative and only serves to introduce Beauchamp and leave him in Little Bill's company, the movie becomes a tough sell for a serious cinephile because it is predictable.

As far as the character work goes, this is another movie where the opening crawl, which establishes key elements of character for William, says far too much. Indeed, it is tough to see why Eastwood bothered with it considering that the rest of the movie is pretty much the unfolding of the character elements which are implied in the first few moments of the movie. The prologue and epilogue are not essential to the film and they largely distract the viewer from actual character development; the viewer just waits for what is implied to be made evident. As a result, Unforgiven is very much like A History Of Violence where other people reveal who the character once was and then they are faced with the dilemma of whether or not to devolve into that character again.

Clint Eastwood is decent as Will and Morgan Freeman is great as Ned, but the performances are well within the presumed range of either performer. Similarly, Gene Hackman plays yet another monolithic villain as sheriff Little Bill. The only one who actually surprised me was Saul Rubinek as Beauchamps. I've seen Rubinek in several other works and he plays the writer with an unassuming quality and a lack of cunning that I've not seen from him in any of his other roles. In other words, he is acting well, as opposed to simply being the product of inspired casting.

On DVD, Unforgiven comes with just the film and the theatrical trailer. The disc is double-sided with the widescreen presentation on one side and the standard presentation on the other.

So, for those looking for a decent, if average, Western revenge tale, Unforgiven has it . . . with little to distinguish it from others in the genre.

[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this is part of my Best Picture Project online here! Please check it out!]

For other revenge movies, please check out my reviews of:
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
The Untouchables
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street

6/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page for an organized list!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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