Ron Howard Miss, Russell Crowe Fix

Rating: Null/10 (21 March 2002)

Many of us had seen a `film' or two by Ron Howard; PG-13, formula driven, nice stuff to watch with relatives, family...
Unfortunately, he does it again with the beautiful 'A beautiful Mind' there you get a very weak, outdated and out of style `directing'... pathetic cinematography (almost like soap opera), where are the close-ups? They are most needed in such character driven films. Painful cinematography. So, the setting and the color tone of the film weren't as bad, but nothing special. Almost every aspect of this film had core flaws to begin with. Except for the rich and powerful performances of Russell Crowe and the lovely Jennifer Connelly (Requiem for a Dream, Dark City) oh did I mention how the script crashes like `alpha' computer software?
A Beautiful Mind is a film about love and strength. A real life story of a genius mathematician John Nash junior. Based on the book written by Sylvia Nasar.
If this film get to be directed by lets say Michael Mann, Peter Jackson, Ang Lee...? Things would have been a thousand times better. If it were up to me, I'll remove the last 20-30 minutes of the film, I'll cut to black after the Bedroom scene-- where Alicia touches Nash face and she tells him the things about the heart... and because it's a real life story, I'll Tell the rest in caption. I believe this way Nash would live longer in our memory; we'll always remember the young Nash fighting his demons and running up the dark corridors toward the light and becoming stronger with every attempt. Rather than the silly Pen scene or the worst; the Nobel Prize ceremony scene, it made it feel like a Disney channel movie.
Ron Howard ruined this otherwise a good film, by the sacred Hollywood book of rules, he'd be clueless without it anyway.
If 'Beautiful Mind' gets the best film Oscar it'll be because of the terrible September 11th events, because it's a story about overcoming and winning, on an American land.
Overall you can NOT miss on this film, It's not a bad film at all, If you just don't mention the Oscar nomination part, except for Russell Crowe first class acting is worth double price of the ticket and the Oscar for best acting.
Please do pardon my English, as it's my third spoken language.