Good Will Hunting

Just a few weeks ago, I reviewed 1989’s Dead Poets Society, a film featuring one of Robin Williams’ best dramatic roles. It even picked him up a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance. For me, it’s a push though when you stop and consider Williams’ overall acting parts. That conversation includes both Dead Poets and 1997’s Good Will Hunting.

Working as a janitor at M.I.T., Will Hunting (Matt Damon) has a pretty simple life. He works, reads, and enjoys hanging out with his friends in south Boston. There’s something special about Will though, something he only lets out in small doses. Will is an absolute genius, able to understand complex mathematical equations at will, an almost photographic memory aiding the cause. It’s more than that though. He gets in trouble with the law though, but when a professor (Stellan Skarsgard) at M.I.T. finds out what this janitor is capable of, he cuts a deal with the court to earn Will’s release. One of the requirements of the release is simple; Will must go to a psychiatrist and talk about his past, his anger, his life. He chases one away after another until he finally meets Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), a psychiatrist who finally challenges him.

Like ‘Dead Poets,’ I sought out ‘Hunting’ after the tragic passing of Robin Williams a few weeks ago. His death is still settling in weeks later, the tributes still revealing themselves as fans continue to realize what a true talent he was. Both for William’s performance and the entire cast, ‘Hunting is a gem, director Gus Van Sant helming a film that picked up nine Oscar nominations, ultimately winning two; Best Supporting Actor for Williams, Best Original Screenplay for Damon and Ben Affleck. It is the best kind of drama, a story interested in the people, the relationships, the real life drama. There are some true BIG dramatic moments, but they never feel forced. They feel very real. This was the movie that put Matt Damon and Ben Affleck on the map in a big way, a huge window into the talents they were and would become. The reason for revisiting the movie was unfortunate, but the movie itself is a gem.

The script from Damon and Affleck is a pretty perfect jumping off point. It paints a great picture of the characters and a true variety of characters. We’re talking full-fledged, red-blooded, 3-D characters that act and talk like real people. That starts with Damon’s Will Hunting. We learn as the story develops what makes Will the way he is, his checkered past littered with violence, his life growing up in foster homes. Rocking an epic Boston accent, Damon kills the part. Will isn’t an easy character to like because he does such a good job pushing people away, but you’re rooting for him just the same. You want him to figure things out, to open up, to trust some. Damon is one of the best actors currently working in Hollywood, a true talent, and this is definitely one of his best.

Damon’s performance is uniformly strong, but the scenes that resonate the most are those in which he interacts with Williams’ Sean. These scenes take place in Sean’s cluttered, homey office, a lived-in feel for sure as Sean, a psychiatrist and professor at a junior college, gets to know the troubled Will. These scenes develop like a chess match, two professionals duking it out, looking for strengths and weaknesses. Why does it work? It plays effortlessly. This isn’t acting but two guys having a conversation. It isn’t always easy to watch, but it’s always fascinating. Will’s early “analysis” of Sean, Sean’s shot back at his brilliant mind, Sean’s explaining about his own past, including a great scene about the 1975 World Series and Carlton Fisk’s famous home run, they all ring true. A true talent in Robin Williams, bringing out the best in all his scenes.

Who else to look for? This isn’t a huge cast, but what’s there is prime. Helping give a window into Will, again, is the script as we see his day-to-day life, meeting his friends as they go bar-hopping, hang out on the weekends. Affleck is a scene-stealer as Chuckie, Will’s longtime best friend, loyal to a fault but also wanting his friend to reach out and take what he can with his gift, his mind. Also look for Casey Affleck and Cole Hauser as two other close friends. Minnie Driver is a gem too as Skylar, an incredibly smart med student who clicks instantly with Will but struggles to get to know him as he puts his walls up. As well, Skarsgard is excellent as a professor with a similarly brilliant mind but not one on the same level as Will. An incredibly talented cast, not a weakness in the bunch.

As I mentioned, this is a movie about the personal drama. If I delve into the story anymore, it’s going to involve giving away some great scenes that should come naturally in the process of watching the film. Me talking about it would be one spoiler after another. Great story, great characters, cool locations in and around Boston, and a pretty cool ending on so many levels. Well worth catching up with. Highly recommended, and again, R.I.P. Robin Williams.

Good Will Hunting (1997): *** ½ /****

Dead Poets Society

More than a week later, it's still hard to believe the shocking news about the passing of Robin Williams. A comedic legend of both television, film and on-stage as a comedian, Williams did it all in a career dating back to the 1970s. I've always thought Williams was an underrated dramatic actor so as a tribute of sorts I tried to catch up with some of his best works. First up? A film he picked up a Best Actor nomination, 1989's Dead Poets Society.

It's 1959 at the prestigious Welton Academy, a four-year, all boys prep school, and a fresh school year is about to begin. This is a school that has quite a reputation for producing above average students, many going onto the Ivy League. This year, Welton is welcoming a new English teacher to its faculty, John Keating (Williams), who favors some unorthodox teaching methods to get his lessons across. Some students like Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard) take instantly to this out of the box teaching, embracing Keating's message. Other students, like the criminally shy Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke), are more wary and stay guarded.  Keating's teaching seems to have quite an impact on his students, but it also catches the attention of some of the rest of the faculty, including the administration that runs the school. The message and goal is there, but is Keating going too far in teaching his students to be free-thinkers?

Whether you watch this movie to rewatch a classic, as a tribute of sorts to Robin Williams, just to explore a new movie you've heard good things about, it's all a positive. I hadn't watched this film from director Peter Weir in years, but it doesn't matter. It still resonates years later because it is pure and simple, a wonderful, beautifully told story. Filmed on-location at St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware, 'Poets' is visually gorgeous, a film full of richness, an almost earthy tone, with some shots looking like a painting. Composer Maurice Jarre's score is equal parts haunting and beautiful, relying on two main themes. Listen HERE for an extended sample. It's the type of perfect score that is effective and powerful and emotional without overpowering what we see. It plays like a companion piece, giving each scene a notch or two up.

But here we sit. Many people think of Robin Williams first and foremost as a comedian, and he's damn funny to the point some have said he's a comedic genius. I think he's criminally underrated as a dramatic actor, and this is a prime example. In a part that earned him a Best Actor nomination (losing to Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot), Williams absolutely steals the show. His John Keating is an English teacher who simply wants his students to learn to think for themselves, to be themselves and to question the norm. In a no-nonsense school, these teaching methods obviously ruffle some feathers. You watch his scenes teaching, and all you think is that THIS is how and what teaching should be like. He inspires, he pushes, he questions, and he makes his students question what they know, how they study and learn. Williams gets his quick glimpses into his comedic ability -- he does a trio of really strong impressions to get a point across about Shakespeare -- but this is Robin Williams at his subdued, dramatic best. Just an amazingly perfect performance.

So while Williams' Keating is the one trying to deliver a message, it is in the students we see how the messages land, some effectively, some with a thud depending on the student. Robert Sean Leonard is excellent as Neil, one of the smartest students at Wellton, a likable kid who's trying to find out who he is and what he wants to be, his incredibly strict father (Kurtwood Smith) limiting those choices. In just his second feature film, Hawke nails his part as Todd, the very smart but very shy new arrival to Wellton who's struggling to find his way. The other students we meet and end up forming the Dead Poets Society include Knox (Josh Charles), the lovestruck kid who falls for a cheerleader at a local public school, Charlie (Gale Hansen), an underachiever who always loves to stir things up, the grades-obsessed Cameron (Dylan Kussman), and Meeks (Allelon Ruggiero) and Pitts (James Waterston), the smart, tech-savvy nerdy types of the group. It's an impressive group of young actors, all of them playing off each other well and finding a groove almost immediately.

The movie has too many worthy moments to mention. I love Keating forcing Todd to step out of his comfort zone to embrace his inner poet. I love Keating's out of the ordinary lesson plans from the Carpe Diem speech to the walking exercise to the strong opinion on the J. Evans Pritchard intro to a book of poetry. It all pales in comparison to where the story goes in its second half. 'Poets' packs quite the emotional punch in its finale in one scene after another. At no point does it feel like they're begging for emotions or trying too hard. Weir, Williams and the young cast manage to find this perfect middle ground, leading to one of the most perfect endings to a movie I can ever remember. It hits me in the gut every single time I watch it. Hawke, Williams and Jarre's score absolutely destroy the final scene.

A classic, a great movie. You will be missed, Mr. Williams.

Dead Poets Society (1989): ****/****

Lee Daniels' The Butler

The names of the U.S. Presidents are instantly recognizable, names synonymous with the history of the United States, especially that building where the president leaves, whatever it's called. The White House I think? What about all the people who work at the White House, who keep the place running? And no, it's not just the nameless/faceless individuals who get killed during terrorist attacks in movies like White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen. I kid of course as we jump into 2013's Lee Daniels' The Butler, the true story of one of the White House's longtime butlers.

Growing up as a young boy with his sharecropping family in 1926 Georgia, Cecil Gaines has his outlook on life forever impacted when his father is shot down by a white man, the land owner where the family work, after raping his mother. Cecil is taught to be a house worker, a butler, and grows up finding jobs here and there working as a butler for the rich and well-to-do, eventually ending up at a Washington D.C. hotel. It isn't long before a grown-up Cecil (Forest Whitaker) has created quite a reputation for himself, earning an interview and eventually a full-time job at the White House, working with the sizable staff to make sure the President's home is a crisp, clean operation on a day-to-day basis. It's the late 1950s though, America heading into a turbulent time in its young history. Cecil has an inside look at America's involvement at home and internationally, all the while trying to raise a family with his wife, Gloria (Oprah Winfrey).  

This wasn't a movie I was dying to see, but I was nonetheless curious, even intrigued to see it. Loosely based on the true story of Eugene Allen, 'Butler' is director Lee Daniels' second film since his 2009 movie, Precious, that really put him on the map. It received pretty solid reviews and was a surprise success in theaters, earning over $167 million. I'm not really sure what to take away from it overall. I can appreciate what the message is going for, what it's trying to stand for and say about American history, yet that said, I didn't especially like it. What it's trying to do is admirable. What it accomplishes? Still mulling that over. Some of that can be chalked up to the script which tries to accomplish a ton in a 132-minute movie.

What I didn't question was Forest Whitaker in the lead role. Playing Cecil Gaines, Whitaker is our window as an audience into a whole lot of American history. We see his mindset, his frustrations, his motivations, his friendships, his rivalries, all of it. It isn't a flashy part, far from it, just a very straightforward, effective part. Whitaker's Cecil is a family man who wants to provide for that family, especially his wife, Gloria, struggling with alcoholism as she misses Cecil, his oldest son, Lewis (David Oyelowo, a good performance with some odd moments as a 37-year old playing a 15-year old), who dives headfirst into the civil rights movement, and his youngest son, Charlie (Elijah Kelley). His narration as a lead characters gets to be a little heavy-handed at times, but that's the script and not on Whitaker's shoulders. A very solid performance for Whitaker, a man trying to get by and live in some extremely turbulent times.

Beyond the family though, the supporting cast is mostly a long list of historical characters and bit parts that aren't around long enough to resonate. We meet a handful of Presidents including Dwight Eisenhower (Robin Williams), John F. Kennedy (James Marsden), Lyndon B. Johnson (Liev Schreiber), Richard Nixon (John Cusack) and Ronald Reagan (Alan Rickman), even meeting Nancy Reagan (Jane Fonda). These little episodes are pretty cool, but they're also gone as quick as they started. Because of that pacing issue, these scenes, appearances and story developments aren't as effective as they could and should have been. In storytelling technique, 'Butler' reminded me of the classic Forrest Gump, bouncing around to a lot of stories, a lot of key moments in American history, the story giving us a window into those moments. Where Forrest Gump blended the humor and drama though, 'Butler' stays on the dramatic path, and it wore on me. This can be a heavy, dark movie to get through at times.

Give the movie credit. It tries to do a lot. Ultimately though, I felt like it tries to do too much. A story focusing on Cecil's 30-plus year career at the White House would have been fascinating in itself. The same for a man trying to care for his family through the turbulence of the Civil Rights movement, into Vietnam and beyond. Doing both ends up making things too bouncy to the point neither story gets the attention it deserves. Much time is spent with Oyelowo's efforts in the Civil Rights movement, Cecil and Gloria worried and angry back home. Moments that feel like they should resonate well and carry the movie feel rushed, not letting those moments breathe. Much like the recent The Monuments Men, this feels like a story that would have been better suited to a miniseries. The effort is admirable, the execution tolerable. Moments like Cecil interacting with his fellow butlers (Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lenny Kravitz) ended up resonating more with me than most of the far-more dramatic scenes. Also look for Terrence Howard , Mariah Carey, Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Redgrave in odd, out of place parts.

That's the biggest issue. It doesn't pick a route and stick with it. Moments that work among portions of story that drift too much, kinda a necessity with a story that covers six decades in a man's life. I also resented something from the final scene, a written, on-screen message thanking all the men and women that have helped gain "our freedom." As a white individual, this message hit me the wrong way, and I admit I may be over-analyzing. Is this a movie meant solely for an African-American audience? Should I not be watching this movie? It's a mixed bag in the end, a generally interesting movie that ultimately doesn't live up to its potential.

Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013): ** 1/2 /****

Hook

Let's face it. Who among us actually wanted to grow up? It's just more fun being a kid. Less responsibilities, no obligations, and basically? Do what you want. That's part of the long-lasting charm of the Peter Pan character, a mischievous boy who never grows up, causing mischief and enjoying himself wherever he goes. What if Peter did grow up though, forgetting about what he used to be? So goes 1991's Hook.

A ruthless businessman who can scoop up struggling businesses effortlessly, Peter Banning (Robin Williams) takes his wife and kids, Jack (Charlie Korsmo) and Maggie (Amber Scott), to visit his grandmother, Wendy (Maggie Smith), in London. Obsessed with a merger, Peter has lost touch with his family, and one night, they're mysteriously taken from Wendy's home, an ominous note from a JAS Hook left on their bedroom door. It defies a 'Peter Pan' to come back to Neverland and rescue his children. Peter has no idea what to make of it until Maggie reveals a secret; Peter is in fact Peter Pan all grown up, his "childhood" lost since forgotten when he chose to grow up. How can he get his kids back? By embracing who he used to be, visiting Neverland and tangling with the nasty Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman). 

As a literary character, Peter Pan first appeared in author J.M. Barrie's 1902 book The Little White Bird. Peter would appear in several other Barrie books and since then has become an instantly recognizable literary character from books and plays to stage plays and feature films, even the iconic Disney classic from 1953. It is a character most kids are aware of at least a little, and there is a charm to the boy who refuses to grow up. A story delving into a 'what if?' about said character is an interesting, unique idea. Peter decided to grow up when he fell in love with his future wife, Moira (Caroline Goodall).  And what if a full-grown Peter doesn't remember his past life as the infamous Peter Pan? Well, away we go.

I watched the movie and enjoyed it only to get a rather large surprise as the credits rolled. Directed by.....Steven Spielberg?!? I couldn't and didn't believe it. Not one of Spielberg's best films, Hook is nonetheless a good film. What struck me most was the distinct look of the film, giving an appearance of almost being based on a stage. The sets are all clearly indoors -- especially the outdoor ones on Neverland and on Hook's ship -- but they're busy, cluttered and claustrophobic. There's always lots of action and movement around, filling the screen to the point it looks like it may burst. John Williams' score is okay if not particularly memorable, never rising above the action on-screen.

What I liked most though was the casting, almost from top to bottom. Who better than to play wild man-child Peter Pan than ultra-goofy Robin Williams? He brings the character to life; a business suit executive who can't be bothered with anything fun. Then, he starts to remember what he used to be and watch out! Let the fireworks ensue. Hoffman is a scene-stealer as Capt. Hook, the infamous pirate leader with a hook for a hand after a crocodile bit his hand off. Julia Roberts plays Tinkerbell, the tiniest of fairies who guides Peter on his rediscovery of who he is. Bob Hoskins too is very good as Smee, Hook's right hand man. Of Peter's Lost Boys, the ones that stand out the most are Dante Brasco as Rufio, the new leader of the Boys, and Raushan Hammond as Thud Butt, the rather....round, jovial Lost Boy. Even look for singer Phil Collins in a small part and Gwyneth Paltrow as a young Wendy in a flashback.  

Far from perfect, the movie does have its flaws. At 144 minutes, it's far too long. Here's my issue. The movie never really slows down from its London intro to the majority of the time being spent on Neverland. It isn't really the pacing's fault, but the movie feels incredibly long at times. Some scenes go on for too long without knowing where to cut it off. As well, the use of some computer generated images looks dated now some 20-plus years later. Hard to criticize it too much, but it's certainly noticeable. Still, it's an entertaining story with an iconic character, an interesting visual look, and a deep cast.

Hook <---trailer (1991): ** 1/2 /****