The story of a genius dumbed down for us yokels.

Rating: 4/10 (19 March 2002)

It's the usual problem with a film about someone whose accomplishments are less easy to demonstrate than touchdowns or legislation passed or wars won: How do you convey even a taste of what makes an artist an artist, or in this case, a genius a genius?
Let me say right off that I don't particularly care about possible factual errors in a biopic, unless they're so glaring as to oppose the spirit of their subject (i.e., depicting Muhammad Ali as a Nazi or Himmler as a Muslim).
What really bothers me about this well-acted (by the leads) but safe and pat movie is that the filmmakers had plenty of access to details of Nash's accomplishments, but decided not to let us in on the secret(s). Perhaps the studio just decided we movie-going yokels wouldn't be interested in that kind of thing... and judging from the mega-box office success of the film, maybe they were right.
The film is called "A Beautiful Mind", and Nash is a Nobel-winning mathematician, but rather than delve into exactly what made his theories so revolutionary, screenwriter Akiva (the Batman series, Lost In Space) Goldsman and director Ron (Night Shift, Apollo 13) Howard feed us the glowing comments of others & a cute but not entirely plausible explanation of Nash's revolutionary work. Instead, the film focuses on (fictional) paranoid delusions in order to pander to the sympathies of some. Why not show (rather than tell) us what made this man so brilliant?
It's very difficult to create an artist, much less a genius on screen ("Pollock", "Amadeus", and "The Silence Of The Lambs" are among the notable exceptions), but in my opinion that is what would have made this a special film. Instead, it's the usual bland button-pushing, lifted by Crowe's extraordinary performance and strong work by Harris and Connelly in support.
This one's not as hilariously undeserving of the statue as "Gladiator", "Out Of Africa", and "Braveheart", but it will settle in nicely with the likes of "Chariots Of Fire" and "Driving Miss Daisy" in the bland and forgettable bin, should this heavy favorite win Best Picture in 2002.