Film Review/DVD Review

Reign Over Me

Director: Mike Binder

Principal Actors: Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler, Saffron Burrows

Producers: Columbia Pictures, Madison 23

Rated: R

Film Release Date: March 23^rd 2007

DVD Release Date: October 9^th 2007

Length: 124 Minutes

4 Stars

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey

My only reference point for this film was that it was a ‘human story’ about 9/11 and that Adam Sandler was in it. Aside from what most people think, Sandler is not just a great comedian, but he also has an amazing depth to his more serious performances such as seen in Spanglish and Punch Drunk Love. Even though Sandler has an eerie resemblance to Bob Dylan in this film, he has a tangible ‘everyman’ quality reminiscent of Jimmie Stewart. However, Sandler’s performance isn’t all Reign Over Me has to offer, but I’m getting ahead of myself here…

Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) is living a mundane life; a married man to Janeane (Jada Pinkett Smith), who has a couple of kids, is a partner in a successful Dentist Office (cosmetic veneer’s specifically) and is slowly slipping away into emptiness under the advanced photography classes he doesn’t want to take and the 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles he doesn’t want to put together. One day Johnson sees Charlie Fineman, a college roommate who has lost his own wife and kids in the September 11^th terrorist attack. Fineman, seemingly on the fringe of society, has careful cultivated a life of not acknowledging his grief and also trying to fill a vat of loneliness in video games, Mel Brooks movies, playing drums for a band and living a college boys life.

Johnson feels for Fineman and the two reignite a friendship that borders somewhere between youthfulness reclaimed and mutual healing. It is a grown-up male friendship, full of depth and understanding, something rarely seen on film these days. These guys are full of issues in their own lives and those issues infringe on the friendship at times, but they don’t digress into macho sports-buds so often stereotyped as the only friendship men can have these days. It is a richly textured relationship, and even the female roles in this film are fully formed and multi-layered. Liv Tyler plays a psychiatrist who Johnson recruits to help Fineman, she is gentle and young and wants to help all her patients as best she can.

The stunning Saffron Burrows (can cheek bones really be that high?) even at six feet tall, seems fragile and fragmented in this role. She is a powerful threat to Johnson when she tries to have an affair with him and a wounded faun when she is with Liv Tyler’s character, and a powerful ally in grief beside Fineman.

Even though this film has two leads, it is perhaps slightly more Cheadle’s film, as much of the story is from his perspective. He performs this well-constructed character beautifully. Cheadle always seems to play a role as if it were a part of himself he is releasing into the ether. Every performance he gives on film is some aspect of own self brought forth.

It is worth re-mentioning at this point that Adam Sandler’s performance is heartbreaking, and very well performed. I hope to see Sandler acknowledged on day like Tom Hanks; from a comedian to a golden statue nod. After all, he has the capabilities; they just need to be showcased in such vehicles as Reign Over Me.

Director and writer Mike Binder seems to be quietly infiltrating Hollywood with quality, character-driven films that draw A-list actors, such as The Upside Of Anger, Man About Town, and now Reign Over Me. Binder tells stories, and he tells them well. Wit, humour, sadness, heart, all culminates into a connection between the characters and the world in which they live. Binder seems to be building a respectable career behind the camera. Little aspects make this film layered, such as Fineman’s obsession with finding vinyl records of his youth; he is going back to happier times. My Father did the same thing towards the end of his life, revelling in music of the 60’s and 70’s. It’s these little ‘home truths’ that make Binder’s films so dynamic and yet subtle and more poignant.

In truth Reign Over Me is a complex character-driven film that both men and women can enjoy, but it shows a great strength in telling an untypical male-centered story. For that reason, this film has substance within social context, but on top of that, this film makes the event of 9/11 more about grief then sensationalism. If you intend to watch one post-9/11 film, side step the World Trade Centre epic, The Twin Towers, or even the highly political Fahrenheit 9/11; and head straight to this film for its heart and humanity. Reign Over Me seems to have slipped through the media empire cracks, but I would definitely go out of my way to find this film.