'Woah' not necessarily being a good thing, or a bad thing.
In my opinion the characters in this movie weren't realistic enough to even begin to believe that it could maybe be happening. Kevin Kline's character George, goes from almost randomly deciding to step outside his shack in his underwear to pee, to taking in his junkie son for the summer to build a house. Hayden Christensen's (may the force be with him) character Sam, goes from trying to hang/suffocate/drug himself to death (What kind of mother, when seeing this, would just leave and shut the door behind her and not do anything about it?), to being "tricked" to love his dad. I would have to say if I could have chosen an actor who I think would be ideal for this part, I would have chosen Shane West, because he did such a great job playing the "bad boy/conflict with father" role in A Walk to Remember. (Of course the people who hire the cast wouldn't have known this because A Walk to Remember came out one year later-I'm just saying, we have seen that he can do it.) These days I think he could have done a much more convincing job than Christensen, who so many people now know as "little Ani". Jena Malone's character Alyssa goes from showering with Sam, to kissing George, then kissing Sam some more, and sleeping in the same bed with him. And I have to ask, what kind of mother would allow her - what? 16 or 17 year old(?) daughter do this?
I thought the first half hour of this movie was pretty bad, but if you can make it past that, I think it really turns out to be a decent movie.
In my opinion the characters in this movie weren't realistic enough to even begin to believe that it could maybe be happening. Kevin Kline's character George, goes from almost randomly deciding to step outside his shack in his underwear to pee, to taking in his junkie son for the summer to build a house. Hayden Christensen's (may the force be with him) character Sam, goes from trying to hang/suffocate/drug himself to death (What kind of mother, when seeing this, would just leave and shut the door behind her and not do anything about it?), to being "tricked" to love his dad. I would have to say if I could have chosen an actor who I think would be ideal for this part, I would have chosen Shane West, because he did such a great job playing the "bad boy/conflict with father" role in A Walk to Remember. (Of course the people who hire the cast wouldn't have known this because A Walk to Remember came out one year later-I'm just saying, we have seen that he can do it.) These days I think he could have done a much more convincing job than Christensen, who so many people now know as "little Ani". Jena Malone's character Alyssa goes from showering with Sam, to kissing George, then kissing Sam some more, and sleeping in the same bed with him. And I have to ask, what kind of mother would allow her - what? 16 or 17 year old(?) daughter do this?
I thought the first half hour of this movie was pretty bad, but if you can make it past that, I think it really turns out to be a decent movie.