Reign Over Me - Review

Writer/Director Mike Binder is the master of missed opportunities. HBO gave him a chance to create the “he said” version of Sex and the City, a bona fide slam dunk for the network. So what does he do? Creates a tedious, drawn-out exercise in male unpleasantness, which, to the shock of nobody, faced a quick execution.

Then there was The Upside Of Anger, a film that had its moments but ultimately suffocated on its own self-importance. With his latest release, Reign Over Me, he seems poised to turn it all around. And he does--until his bad habits leak into the movie and pollute it.

For two-thirds of the way, Reign Over Me is a surprisingly solid flick. Don Cheadle plays Alan Johnson, a successful dentist who has a perfect wife (Jada Pinkett Smith) and perfect kids, but feels a gaping hole in his life that resembles one of his patient’s cavities. He craves excitement, something to pry him away from the 1000-piece puzzles he does with his wife before they hit the hay at 10:30 p.m. every evening.

Which is why when he sees his old college roommate, Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler), riding a scooter around the city and listening to music, he is strangely drawn to him. But Charlie has lived through an unfathomable tragedy: His wife, three daughters--and even the family poodle--were killed on September 11, and he can’t find the will to recover.

The movie is mainly about their friendship and how they help each other reclaim their zest for life. It all sounds awfully hokey, but Binder is smart enough to keep the tone light for most of it, showing them hanging out and doing guy things in between Sandler’s spontaneous fits of rage in clubs or office lobbies. He's blocked out his old life, and if someone dares to bring it up to him, he goes all kinds of ballistic. Call it the Hollywood version of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, similar to the Hollywood version of Cancer Victim where the woman has perfectly applied make-up while resting on her death bed.

But the true standout isn’t Sandler, since his character isn’t written as an actual human being. The movie belongs to Cheadle. He’s the guy you really care about and he’s the guy you want to see get everything he wants out of life. When a beautiful yet unstable patient (Saffron Burrows) tries to corner him in his office for sex, he tosses her out and slams the door. What’s not to like about a guy like that and a movie about a guy like that.

Which brings us back to Binder and his knack for missteps. In a better version of Reign Over Me, the loony patient would not pop up in Charlie’s life as a potential love interest. There wouldn’t be a big courtroom showdown with Donald Sutherland sitting behind the bench scolding his lawyers. And the eponymous song by The Who wouldn’t be played on several occasions to pound home the message.

Reign Over Me is a wildly uneven ride, one that has moments of brilliance that get washed away by the contrivances plaguing the overwrought, lingering last third. Binder almost had it with this one; if only he knew the right time to walk away.

Ocean's Thirteen - Review

For the actors on set, the Ocean’s movies are a party. Famous people show up, hang out, and seem to have a lot of fun with each other . There’s very little acting involved, but that’s also part of the series’ genius. As the franchise wears on director Steve Soderbergh has begun to merge the public persona of his very famous actors with that of the movie’s characters. By now, in the midst of the third film, there’s very little effort at all to develop these people into anything other than themselves. You’re watching George Clooney and Brad Pitt up there, not Danny Ocean and his good buddy Rusty. It’s not that Pitt and Clooney can’t act, it’s just that for these movies, they don’t need to. For Ocean’s Thirteen, that blending of public persona and character is more complete than ever and as a result the Ocean’s franchise works better than before.

It begins without bothering to attempt an introduction. George, Brad, Matt, Bernie and the rest show up and jump right into a heist. Elderly gang member and mascot Reuben Tishkoff (Elliot Gould) has been screwed over by a vicious Vegas entrepreneur named Willie Bank (Al Pacino), sending Reuben to the sick bed and Ocean’s boys to his defense. Clooney and his gang of lovable thieves spring into action to ruin Bank, with their most complicated con yet.

Ocean’s women have been left at home for this adventure, there’s an offhand reference to Tess being unable to come in the film’s opening, and the movie is better for it. Ocean’s Thirteen is about the unbreakable bond between a group of male friends, and the lengths they’re willing to go to honor it. They’re also back in Las Vegas, the perfect place for dudes to hang out and look really, really cool. By now this group has such an easy chemistry together that all of it, seems incredibly natural. They fit together, and by cutting away a lot of the fat that plagued the previous movies Soderbergh has made more room for the easy-going chemistry of his cast to take over. Because everyone seems so natural, for the audience it becomes almost an exercise in voyeurism, as if we’re peeking in at the day to day lives of Clooney and Pitt… if they had secret second jobs as roguish master thieves.

As usual, Ocean’s is all about looking cool. Clooney looks cool, Pitt looks cool, Damon looks cool. They talk cool, they move cool, and that’s good enough. Combine that with one of the better heist plots the series has had and you have a movie that’s a lot of fun. The gang shows up, gets right into the heist, and when the heist is done so is the movie. It’s short, it’s sharp, and because Soderbergh keeps things so simple, stripped-down, and straight to the point, Ocean’s Thirteen is the best Ocean’s movie so far.