Interesting biography turned into a chaotic display of cinematic mediocrity

Rating: 5/10 (5 March 2002)

This film provides inspiring flashes of the life of John Nash, winner of the 1994 economics Nobel Prize.
Unfortunately, it does so in a rather daunting way. The film lacks momentum and at times someone seems to have decided to simply kick the script in the butt to at least keep the film moving. As a spectator it is hard to know what was actually intended: a thriller, a biography, a feel-good movie or simply an attempt to make some profit in the wake of the "Sixth Sense".
Russell Crowe was over-acting grossly. Many a time a wry smile forces itself unto you seeing him clown his way through the darker parts of this drama. As usual, Jennifer Connelly gives a charming but rather bleak appearance. Under the circumstances the acting is more than adequate though, and provides one of the few memorable points of this movie.
The scenes depicting life at a university are so simplistic that you don't know if you should laugh at so much stupidity or be angry at the director for treating you like a dimwit. The more so as this is a story about a man with an exceptionally high I.Q..
I read somewhere that throughout the film one can see the microphones. I didn't actually notice this (understandably, as the movie does its best to mix romantic intermezzos with a contrived thriller plot). But this doesn't come as a surprise seeing that the most important parts of the movie have been unlovingly expedited.
Sadly, the most novel aspect of this story, i.e. the workings of a man's mind, and more specifically the victory of a man over his own mental illness, almost disappeared under the mass of cliche story elements and the artificial (and ultimately superfluous) plot twists à la Sixth Sense.