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Reign Over Me
Released: March 23, 2007 / October 9, 2007
Director: Mike Binder
Reviewer: Eric
Reign Over Me is another drama about September 11th, a day
that changed the United States forever. Instead of showing what
happened on the planes or how the police dealt with things below
Reign Over Me shows another side. What would happen if somebody
lost their entire family? That’s what Reign Over Me shows and I
must say it has a much more
powerful message than Oliver Stone’s
World Trade Center.
 The
movie is mainly about Charlie, whom is played by Adam Sandler.
Charlie’s family was on the plane that hit one of the towers,
the Boston flight to be precise. Before all this happened
Charlie was a successful dentist in New York and his family got
along so well, his wife and three little girls. His old college
roommate Alan (Don Cheadle) has been trying to get a hold of
Charlie ever since September 11th and he finally does, leading
into some of the most powerful moments I’ve seen in a long time
in movie history.
I won’t lie this movie made me shed a few tears, it was
defiantly a good movie. Seeing what some people might have went
through after 9/11 is sad. In Charlie’s case he quit his job,
plays
video games non stop, remodels his kitchen weekly and he
escapes all his sorrows with music. Charlie doesn’t want to
remember his family any more, he tries to pretend they never
existed. Whenever anything about them is brought up he puts on
his headphones and listens to his
iPod.
Alan is also having problems in this movie too, but nothing like
Charlie. To try and escape his problems Alan will spend all his
time with Charlie, once he is done working at the office. The
whole time Alan is living the life he wants through Charlie,
ignoring his wife and kids. His wife, played by Jada Pinkett
Smith, is always making decisions for him, gets mad whenever he
goes out and pretty much anything else that involves him not
being at home. What does Alan do? He preaches about Charlie to
her just so he can go out and have fun.
Reign Over Me starts to take a more series pace whenever Alan
realizes Charlie needs help. Trying to get Charlie to talk about
his past and moving on with his life is a lot harder than he
thought it would be. Charlie causes numerous scenes in public
and he even goes as far as trashing Alan’s office. It is scary
seeing this happen but when you realize what Sandler’s character
is going through you really feel for him.
Losing your entire
family would be heart breaking. It may sound easy just to say
“Get Over It” but its not, Reign Over Me shows all the highs and
lows of what might/could have happened with a situation like
this.
 For
the most part everyone in Reign Over Me did a great job acting.
The film mainly revolves around Sandler and Cheadle so all the
other actors only get so much screen time. Liv Tyler, a
friend/psychologist of Johnson’s, does a good job when she is on
screen, but seeing her as a psychologist seems a little
unbelievable. I’m not trying to cause problems with that
comment, Tyler is a good actress but I think it might have been
a better idea to have the judge, Donald Sutherland, play the
psychologist role. Reign Over Me didn’t have bad cast choices
like Troy it just seems like they could have went for better
decisions instead of putting in a lot of stars.
I watched Reign Over Me on Blu-Ray and to tell the truth I don’t
think it is necessary to watch it on this format. The extras on
the disc are
nothing special, an extended jam session with
Sandler and Cheadle, a still reign photographic montage and a
behind the scenes look at the movie. There are no deleted scenes
or commentary tracks, I looked every where on the disc and
didn’t see them. If you have to own all your movies on Blue-Ray
then you might as well get this one, but if you are looking for
extra features then you will be disappointed. Also do we really
need a Drama movie in high definition?
Final Verdict
September 11th was hard on everybody and some people
are still dealing with it. Out of all the 9/11 movies out their
today I really do think Reign Over Me is the best. This movie
does a great job showing how somebody is dealing with a tragic
lose, losing all your family members. Both Sandler and Cheadle
do excellent jobs here, seeing both these funny guys do such a
series movie like this only proves how great their acting skills
are. I really can’t recommend this movie to
purchase on Blu-Ray,
but I still like it a lot. Do yourself the favor and pick this
one up on DVD at some point with some tissues, Reign Over Me is
a tear jerker, especially at the end.
Rating
8.50 out of 10
Reign Over Me Trailer
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