Susan Hated Literature

Writ & Dir: Emilio Estevez

• Harry Belafonte - Nelson
• Nick Cannon - Dwayne
• Emilio Estevez - Tim Fallon
• Laurence Fishburne - Edward Robinson
• Heather Graham - Angela
• Anthony Hopkins - John Casey
• Helen Hunt - Samantha
• Joshua Jackson - Wade
• Ashton Kutcher - Fisher
• William H. Macy - Paul
• Demi Moore - Virginia Fallon
• Freddy Rodríguez - José
• Martin Sheen - Jack
• Christian Slater - Timmons
• Sharon Stone - Miriam
• Jacob Vargas - Miguel
• Elijah Wood - William
• David Krumholtz - Phil

As you can see from that impressive cast list, this is a bit of an ensemble film, which means it runs the risk of the audience not caring about the characters. And I’m afraid it failed. I just didn’t care about any of them.

And the story itself was a whole heap of nothingness. I mean, I’m sure that it may have an impact on people who lived through the time, or for those who are big fans of Bobby Kennedy, but as a film it just didn’t work. It tried far too hard to push through some big message, but ended up coming over as heavy-handed, irrelevant and, to be blunt, crap. The various stories of the different characters are un-engaging. The acting is all fine, but the characters themselves are pointless. Pointless and boring. I kept hoping for it to end.

What did work was the insertion of clips of RFK, but to be honest, while I liked watching them I found it impossible to actually listen to anything that Bobby was saying. Maybe it was because I was so bored with the film, I don’t know.

Maybe it is because I don’t know anything about Bobby Kennedy, but this film did nothing but make me yawn. Then again, the film isn’t really about Bobby, it is about the people of the time and the affect he had on them. Everyone seemed to love him, or at least everyone in the film did, considering the fact that he got assassinated I’m sure someone must have disliked him. The film is a snapshot of one day in these various people’s lives, but that is it, there is nothing to focus on, or think about, or engage with. I just didn’t care about anything that happened.

Sure the ending works, but not because you care about any of the characters, but simply because it is people getting shot and panicking in a realistic manner. And of course because you know that this is all based on the truth.

Final verdict? Don’t bother with it. It’s crap.

IMDb | Cinematical | Edward Copeland on Film | Black Sheep Reviews

Dir: Andrew Davis
Writ: Ron L. Brinkerhoff

• Kevin Costner - Ben Randall
• Ashton Kutcher - Jake Fischer
• Sela Ward - Helen Randall
• Melissa Sagemiller - Emily Thomas
• Clancy Brown - Capt. William Hadley

Grizzled old veteran teaches impudent new pup how to be a rescue swimmer.
And that is about it.

But if that was all I said it’d make for a pretty short review, so I’ll just bullshit away here for a few minutes. The Guardian is a pretty crap version of Top Gun only instead of planes and war you get oceans and rescues. But the rest is fairly similar; elite training camp, male bonding, token females, death of team-members, training montage etc etc. But all in all it isn’t terrible.

It is however full of very cliché in film history, so there are no surprises at all, everything happens exactly as you might expect. Even the “cool slow-motion shots” occur when you think they might. The only thing surprising about this film is the length. It does drag towards the end. And the beginning. And the middle isn’t too well-paced either.

But it is still watchable, laughable yes, but also watchable.

IMDb | Reason To Believe | PopDVD | The Renaissance Man