| Finding Forrester |
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| Rating: Good Distributor: Columbia Pictures Genre: Drama Running Length: 2 hours, 18 minutes MPAA Rating: PG-13 Release Date: December 20th, 2000 (limited), December 25th, 2000 (wide) Director: Gus Vant Sant Cast: Robert Brown, Sean Connery, Anna Paquin, Tom Mullica, F. Murray Abraham and Busta Rhymes. |
| Plot: Jamal Wallace (Robert Brown) is a 16-year-old, fantastic basketball player, and a genius. However, he does not try hard in school and is thusly getting mediocre grades. He reads frequently, and is an intellectual although he doesn't show his friends that side of him. Wallace gets extraordinary test scores, prompting a sophisticated high school to take him as a transfer. He is treated unfairly by some, including his English professor (F. Murray Abraham) and doesn't feel like he fits in quite yet. He befriends a young girl who goes to that school (Anna Paquin), who he cares for deeply. Meanwhile, Wallace is being privately taught by a grizzled, secluded old man William Forrester (Sean Connery). Forrester once wrote a great American novel, but has not written another for 50 years. Jamal attempts to help bring Forrester back to life, while Forrester teaches Jamal the lessons of life in addition to his studies. |
| Critique: I am really tired of pretentious directors telling me in their films how evil and awful all humans are. Although it doesn't happen every movie, it seems to happen too often. Finding Forrester does not attempt to do much more than let the audience have a good time and express how nice humans can be. It can be incredibally predictable, but is quite a fun film. Robert Brown in his first performance does quite well, and Sean Connery is also very good although both actors don't really have demanding roles. They are surrounded by Oscar winning supporting actors F. Murray Abraham, and Anna Paquin who are effective. Gus Van Sant does not perform any ground breaking or wondrous direction, but he really is pretty solid. He supplies some artful scenes to give the film some attractive qualities. The cinematography is unoriginal, but good, and the score is nice. It is an all around good film. Finding Forrester is well paced, and Van Sant seems in control of the speed of the journey. The ending leaves something to be desired, and along with some other scenes it feels like we have seen it before. Yet, it has enough originality so that it is not annoyingly redundant. A scene that you've seen before is when Brown covers Connery as he falls asleep in his chair with a plad blanket. Oh, how tender! Nonetheless, it was enjoyable enough that those flaws were not too earth shattering. In conclusion, it was a well made film, with fine performances. It suffered from some lack of originality, and some unsuccessful attempts at wisdom. Most importantly though, it was very enjoyable. review by supernothingman |
| picture above from www.spe.sony.com/movies/findingforester/ |
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