Reviews

Truly an awful movie. I probably watch 100 movies/year, and this would definitely rank in the bottom 10%, maybe the bottom 5%. Not long after the movie started (I watched it on DVD), I started watching the timer on my DVD player. Bad sign. Kept watching timer, wishing it would at least get to the hour mark. Hoped movie was less than 2 hours long. Know what I mean?

This movie had no character development. I never cared about any of the characters, because they hadn't given me any reason to care.

Fight scenes were mildly entertaining, but way overrated.

Plot was lame.

Scenery was pretty. There, I finally found something to praise.

Seriously, unless you need to watch 500 movies/year, skip this one. There are far better uses of 2 hours of your time than to watch this movie. I can't think of anyone it would appeal to, at least no one over 10 years old.

Some people criticize this movie for a variety of reasons. We just watched it and we loved it. It exceeded all of our expectations. My partner and I did not find the movie too long; in fact she commented at the end that she was disappointed that it was over so soon. I felt the same way.

I guess it's all a question of what you're expecting. One board commenter expressed disappointment that there wasn't any real insight into "what women want." Our view on that is that we didn't expect any deep insight from such a movie. We were looking for a light-hearted comedy that entertained us on a Friday night, let us spend some quality time snuggling on the coach sharing a good time, and provided some nice relief from the week's stresses. The movie succeeded.

I suppose if I were a professional film-maker or a film professor or something, I could dissect the movie and come up with all kinds of criticisms. I read Ebert's review and he nit-picked on a number of points and pointed out how it could have been better. But you know what? Roger Ebert has trouble enjoying a movie the way it's intended to be enjoyed because he earns his living criticizing movies! He *HAS* to find fault with a movie. He can't just write "Hey, it was a fun movie. I enjoyed it. If you want a nice romantic comedy, you'll enjoy it." He'd lose his job! He's a professional critic and doesn't just enjoy a movie, he has to figure out how he would have made it better. Fortunately, I'm not burdened by that.

One last note. I've read several critiques of Helen Hunt being inappropriate for the part. Again, whether someone else would have been better or not isn't the point for me. I thought she did well. I thought the movie worked. Yes, I didn't think at first that they had a natural "chemistry," but that was the point. They started out as competitors for the same job and the situation was naturally antagonistic. Through all of that, as Mel Gibson developed his "insight," they grew closer together. I thought the romance worked, at least well enough to make us smile and to not be distracted at all. (Besides, I wonder if people who expect "natural chemistry" between an actor and actress expect the same in real life. Just because two people instantly "click" doesn't mean there is going to be a deep, lasting relationship there, and the converse holds as well.)

I've written before that one of my acid tests for a movie is whether or not I check the clock (or VCR timer) to see how much longer before the movie is over (and if I do check it, why). I found myself checking the VCR timer only once on this movie, and it was because I did *NOT* want it to end. For me, that's a simple measure of enjoyment. The movie took me on a trip I wanted to go on, it lived up to my expectations, even exceeding them, and entertained us both for two hours.

Don't rent it expecting to find a treatise on what women want. Rent it to be entertained. If you approach it that way, it's a very enjoyable movie.

This movie isn't for everyone. There is little action, no sex, nudity, or violence, no voluptuous bodies, no chase scenes (the fastest anyone goes is on a tandem bicycle), no glitzy special effects. There are very few characters at all; nearly all dialogue comes from the five top billings, and most from the two central characters: the old men played by Duvall and Harris.

Yet it is one of the most engaging and thoughtful films I've seen in a long time. It deals with aging in a realistic way that isn't morose or gruesome, but instead pulls you into the movie as if you're one of the cast who just doesn't happen to have any lines. You are "there" for the entire two hours and you don't want to leave. You quickly care about these people as if they're your own family members, and you move through the movie with them.

Neither do you want to miss a line. The acting is superb all the way around. Duvall's performance is incredible. I didn't come to IMDb today to write a review; I came to see if Duvall won an academy award nomination for his performance. I'm disappointed that this film appears to have won no awards at all. This is probably more a result of the film's poor box office showing than the quality of the movie (it only grossed $231,700, not enough to even pay the crew, let alone the cast). It's a shame that quality films such as this can't draw enough of an audience to be successful, or to even attract enough attention from Academy members for them to even see it and vote on it.

If you didn't know that Duvall was in this film, it might take you awhile to even realize it's him. I can't say enough about it, and am not a good enough movie reviewer to do his performance justice. I hope you'll just trust me on this one and rent this film. It's worth seeing for Duvall's work alone. The rest will be gravy.

But what tasty gravy it is. If you like movies that draw you in and present characters who are real, whom you care about, who change before your eyes in ways you can relate to and understand, then you'll really like this movie. If you like movies that change you a little, that teach you something about life without being at all obvious about it, that don't try to manipulate you, that are sincere, that elicit a range of your emotions without playing you like a cheap fiddle, then you really should see this.

I'm also disappointed in the movie's rating here on IMDb. I notice that the raw numbers are much higher, but the IMDb special formula has adjusted it significantly downward to factor out "the village idiots." While I'm sure there's a good reason for IMDb's secret adjustment formula and that it is appropriate for many situations, I can't imagine that this is the kind of movie for which village idiots would try to stuff the ballot box. Most people who voted for this movie gave it very high ratings--7 to 10--and I'd recommend that you believe them. Wrestling Ernest Hemingway is a quality movie with broad appeal that will leave you feeling very glad you invested two hours in watching it.

"Is that it?" That was my reaction when this movie was over. I couldn't believe it had been hyped so much and offered so little.

One good measure of how good a movie is is how well it pulls you into it. If you lose track of your surroundings and feel like you're a part of the movie, it's probably a pretty good flick. Based on that criterion, this one sucked.

The gimicky hand-held camera shots were nauseating and distracting. Had there been a decent plot and dialog I would have overlooked the seasickness this movie almost induced.

But nothing about it was good. Almost every horror movie I've seen does a better job of bringing you into the movie than this one does. It was really bad. The whole movie I kept waiting for the build-up to end and for the real action to begin. I really wanted to be "in" this movie. But it never succeeded.

I suspect viewers under 21 probably enjoy this movie a lot more than older viewers. Unless you really related to the characters...which I didn't...I think it would be hard to feel like you're out in the woods with these actors. On several occasions I checked my watch to see when the movie would be over. That's a REAL bad sign.

Did I say that I didn't like this movie?

I'm particularly annoyed because I WANTED to like it. I'm also annoyed because I could have seen Sixth Sense or any number of other movies, but we chose this one. We don't go to the theater all that often; mostly rent videos. To think we paid $14 to see this when we could have seen something decent gets my goat. Movies should offer a money-back guarantee. Oh well. I got sucked in by the hype. That's show biz.

P.S. Save your money. It's not a good movie!