SXSW Review: Reign Over Me

This movie was awful. It was so bad, it put me in a foul mood all night and I woke up in a bad mood this morning.

I liked it for about 20 minutes. The setup was interesting, and the photography was great. Lots of downtown New York exteriors, beautifully photographed.

But after the setup, there wasn't a moment in the film that didn't have the writer's ham-fisted fingerprints all over it. It was shallow, forced, false, and misogynistic and homophobic too.

Everything about it felt fake. Fake therapy, fake courtroom, fake dentist, fake fancy apartment, fake person damaged by grief. Yuck. Blech.

Reply

'Steven',

First off, you have your right to your opnion but I guarantee that the audience that you saw it with didn't feel like you did about this film. I have yet to see one crowd not be incredibly moved by it. Second, it wasn't fake therapy, fake this and fake that. You simply are bitter and rude and don't know what you're talking about. This was all one hundred percent meticoulsly researched. Every stitch of it. Sandler and I did due diligence. It's easy to take cheap shots anonyomously like you did but the truth is you're just a hater for some reason and it's your thing to deal with so go fuck yourself. I don't have a msyoginistic or homphobic bone in my body. I just hate whiny little shits like you.

James, you on the other hand have a right to an opinion, you're a respected critic and you use your name and wear your thoughts like a badge but you got this one wrong, that's all I can say. I've had the stinkers and I cop to them and this deserved a better review than that. It has too much emotion for some or whatever but as I said to asshole 'Steven' the crowd doesn't lie. I've seen it play too many times. The emotion hits home and the comedy works and the story is satisfying. Sometimes to want more than that is to just follow the crowd to the hip side of the room anyway. You're smarter than that.

I wish you the best.
Mike Binder

Reply

Unrelated to the film (mostly):

When I first saw the photo accompanying the post, I thought, "What is Bob Dylan doing in this movie?"

If Bob ever decides to authorize a Hollywood treatment of his life, Sandler would fit the bill as the lead. Plus he knows how to play guitar and sing goofy.

Reply

that's not the real mike binder, i hope.

Reply

Looks like Mike Binder came home at 1:50 a little tipsy form the bars and let the internet get to him. It has happened to the best of us though it does makes him look pretty insecure.

Reply

James -- terrific review. And while Binder didn't completely "agree to disagree" I'm glad he did aver that you are good at what you do.

Besides, with growing disconnect between critical drubbings vs. commercial successes -- Wild Hogs, Norbit, 300 -- and the disconnect between the blogging frontier and Hollywood "meatspace" -- Binder's got every reason to be confident in his effort. But that doesn't mean that a 70 million dollar opening weekend and a response of "no further questions your honor" validate the actual quality or criticisms of a film.

Reply

If that is the real Mike Binder who wrote those commnents, I know he feels that way for a good reason. I know Mike does not go out and does not get "tipsy", and just because someone stands up for something they believe in, it does not mean they are insecure. They understand that idiots who sit on the sidelines of their own lives want to share their miserable existence with the public, and quite frankly, its disgusting. What is a movie reviewer in the first place?? I mean, that's what you actually do for a living? Just to let you know, and last weeks box office will provide proof to this.....NO ONE listens to you idiots. Maybe they did in the past, but today, the public has figured out that critics are by nature sour, unhappy people who simply want to tear something down and who could never create anything by themselves so they do the only thing they can. Maybe calling Mike homophobic is a knee jerk rection b/c you have had to suck a lot of cock to get your job in the first place, but please, you simply look jealous and desperate for attention when you constantly feed the public your meaningless bullshit. Mike is a director and an actor. Yeah, he does love to see himself on the screen in all his movies, but hey, no one's perfect. And he is a bad card player, but that's not the point either. So you guys who spend your time judging people who actually put something on the line in their lives......please stop speaking...no one like you.
steve

Reply

Sorry, "NO ONE likes you"

Reply

Wow Steve Shields, did you even read James' review? I believe you're confusing the review with the comments Steven made -- James was nothing but honest in his piece, and actually had a few nice things to say about the movie, as well as Binder. Next time, try taking your "Happy Friday" medicine, calm down, check your facts and try to leave a constructive comment that doesn't spew hate.

Reply

You are pathetic, steve shields. People like you make me sick.

Reply

First off, I didn't come home tipsy. I am sober twenty two years. That was me and I did lose it and it is stupid. I usually do not do that kind of thing but the post by this pretzel Steven got to me and the 'fake' thing hit home because of the hard work we did in research. Thanks to Shieldsy for sticking up. He's a hockey player that knows what it's like to get heckled by a moron. I'm sorry if I took off on James and the truth is I'm sorry to go off on Cinematical because it's one of my best sites, and that's what got me going I guess. Either way, people need to see the movie and judge for themselves. I don't need to play to the critics though Shieldsy, that's not what this is about. I never have cared what they think of me. Ever. I just don't like the veracity questioned by a little dirtbag like that Steven dude who has an absurd little blog and bagged me on it several times.

Thanks for getting in there for me though pal.

Mike Binder

Reply

I might have gone a little overboard on my comments but I see friends who put months, sometimes years into projects, and to have them torn down before they have a chance to affect someone, is very sad. I am an average person who goes to see movies for one reason, and that's to escape for a few hours and maybe find a way to relate to and sympathize with the actors on screen. The whole goal of a movie is to make the moviegoer feel something. It may not always be what we expect, but its certainly never done to purposely make the audience feel as though they have wasted their time. Hundreds of people put their heart and soul into these projects and I was not trying to make the age old comparison of movie maker vs. reviewer, nor are real people going to movies for any other reason but to travel somewhere else and maybe feel something that they can't feel in everyday life. My understanding of a critics job is obviously misguided if that is what you are honestly attempting to accomplish, then I apologize if I have offended you. Nobody wants to feel as though their work is not appreciated, but its very hard to sometimes really show any respect for other reviewers, because it is true that most of them don't strive to create debate, they simply offer the public an outrageous opinion so that they are noticed. James, I apologize again for my previous comments, you are obviously someone who has thought about what you say, and you take your job seriously. If you passed this ethic on to some of your peers, your profession would probably not be looked upon with the contempt that it sometimes is. thanks.

Reply

This was a fantastic, engrossing movie. I have seen it twice. I am a pysche nurse and know first hand that the seens with Liv Tyler were portrayed realystically with both characters. Post traumatic stess Disorder was also done extremely well. It can cause regression in a poor soul who's been so tramatised. The acting was beyond outstanding. Comedy and tragey were played with equal excellence. The photography was outstanding. The music swelled at the right moments and was moving. Binder's direction was perfect in my opinion. I have not been to a movie that I have thoght so highly of in a long time. Everyone I brought with me to see was equally impressed. Terrific job!!
Lindy

Reply

After the last frame of this movie dissolved into the end credit sequence, my 11 year old son, Amir, turned to me and said: "Pop, that was four stars! How many do you give it?" My reply: "Hold on, we'll discuss it in the car..."

My son noticed that I was fixed on the elderly couple that had been sitting next to me, clearly enjoying this movie, (as I was). Back in our car on the drive home, I gave the simple part of my answer, "yes, it's a four star movie, no question," I said to my son, then I rolled out some of the immediate observations that I withdrew from “Reign”; each of which rendered an amazing impact on me.

As one of the earlier installments of what is sure to be later referred to as the 'Post 9/11 films', "Reign" delivers a refreshingly different look at a national mega tragedy. Rather than focus on the anger, rage, revenge, heroics, politics, and/or religious propaganda that 9/11 provoked, "Reign" focuses on the interlocking grip of friendship, love, unbearable pain, and irreversible hurt, which 9/11 most certainly exposed.

Fact is, Binder targets the tragic loss, not the tragic event. And in doing so, he lends more meaning to an otherwise meaningless, unforgivable act. This in turn makes 9/11 hover and resonate, while we dual with the task of remembering what we do not want to remember.

"Reign" is about the tragedies that hit and miss us. The ones that are collective and the ones that are personal. The ones that strike like whiplash, and the ones that we ourselves seemingly lay down the foundations for. When tragedies hit, there are always multiple layers to navigate. But For Fineman (Adam Sandler) [Fine Man, aka: everyday, upstanding, family, regular man], perhaps there will never be any reckoning of the "collective tragedy". The base layer of his personal tragedy is so irregular, so unordinary, so abnormal that he's emotionally and physically "stuck", while the city and the small number of people who know him (the collective) have moved on from the base layer of their collective tragedy.

If this was the only point that "Reign" focused on it would still be a four-star film. But Binder goes further, he juxtaposes two tragedies. Fineman's major tragedy, the definite loss of his wife and life, leans heavy on Johnson (Don Cheadle). But this weight serves as the kind of wake up call that Johnson has been searching for. Indeed, because of his quest to help Fineman, he mentally commits to countering his own issues, namely his increasing detachment from his mundane life and the growing distance between he and his wife. Johnson escapes his own near tragedy, by helping Fineman work through his.

Regardless of the context, (here, in "Reign" it's the broad, very imposing tragedy of 9/11), the interlocking grip of friendship, love, unbearable pain, and irreversible hurt is an incredibly difficult force to decipher. But through an incredibly on-beat story, underscored with a chilling touch of humanity, "Reign" eloquently does just that.


Amir "Sa'id" Said

Reply