Someone close to me recommended Fearless as a fascinating film about life and death and what it all really means. On seeing it, I have to say I'd put it without question with the ranks of "Pay It Forward" as a film that sets up a realm to discuss something truly profound, but instead gives in to cheap weepy melodrama and a very empty philosophy from a promising premise. I even felt, at moments, as if I smelled the indelicate hand of Mimi Leder at work. I could hardly believe this was the director who brought us "Dead Poet's Society".
I have so many questions for Mr. Weir. What is this film talking about? Loss? Life? Death? Trauma? Recovery? Love? The film's theme wander's about as often as the it's dialog contradicts itself. Are twisted moments like buying gifts for the dead supposed to be heartwarming? Why does Jeff Bridges' character, who is supposed to have undergone a profound and meaningful revelation, seem to constantly change his mind? Why cast loud- mouthed bronxer Rosie Perez as the sensitive character of the mother who loses her child? You know from the script we're gonna have to watch that girl cry a lot... oh OK, that makes sense. Cast the most abrasive person possible to do the job. Why is Max's wife spontaneously Italian? Did Rossellini just seem like a big enough name to cast that accent without its having any relation whatsoever to the story? How did you manage to make John Turturro boring? Characters and plot lines come and go, and I can smell the stench of coffee and cigarettes in the novelists office as he tries to figure out how to fill the inconvenient space between an interesting set up and a mildly poetic, if inconsistent ending. Default to what all the cheapest modern dramatists do: fill it with TV-quality melodramatic tripe.
I was so relieved to see the budget flesh out a few million in the final sequence, because I was terrified that, since it only raked in 7 million at the box office, this paperback picture might have made money despite the wise choice of the majority of audiences to avoid it like a Sharon Stone film.
I have so many questions for Mr. Weir. What is this film talking about? Loss? Life? Death? Trauma? Recovery? Love? The film's theme wander's about as often as the it's dialog contradicts itself. Are twisted moments like buying gifts for the dead supposed to be heartwarming? Why does Jeff Bridges' character, who is supposed to have undergone a profound and meaningful revelation, seem to constantly change his mind? Why cast loud- mouthed bronxer Rosie Perez as the sensitive character of the mother who loses her child? You know from the script we're gonna have to watch that girl cry a lot... oh OK, that makes sense. Cast the most abrasive person possible to do the job. Why is Max's wife spontaneously Italian? Did Rossellini just seem like a big enough name to cast that accent without its having any relation whatsoever to the story? How did you manage to make John Turturro boring? Characters and plot lines come and go, and I can smell the stench of coffee and cigarettes in the novelists office as he tries to figure out how to fill the inconvenient space between an interesting set up and a mildly poetic, if inconsistent ending. Default to what all the cheapest modern dramatists do: fill it with TV-quality melodramatic tripe.
I was so relieved to see the budget flesh out a few million in the final sequence, because I was terrified that, since it only raked in 7 million at the box office, this paperback picture might have made money despite the wise choice of the majority of audiences to avoid it like a Sharon Stone film.