Great, but certainly no masterpiece

Rating: 8/10 (15 November 1999)

I am shocked at the great reception American Beauty has gotten on the IMDB. #2, only behind the Godfather!?!? Come on! It was great, to be sure, but all of the film's sentiments have been expressed before, and better. The decaying family relationships were stated in the better film The Ice Storm. The idea that even in terrible situations, life is still beautiful was brilliantly shown in (what else!) Life is Beautiful!
The one thing that the film did succeed in doing extremely well is the composition of shots. Watch the scene where the neighbor boy records Thora Burch with his video camera. We see the boy on the far left of the screen, staring at her offscreen. Burch stares out at the audience from the television. That is one perfect shot! There are several great scenes like this.
The part of the film which truly bothered me, though, was the way they handled the inevitable shooting. Throughout the film, we watch every important character talk about killing Spacey, and we see them all next to guns. This set up reminded me of the "Who Shot Mr. Burns" episode of the Simpsons. I don't know about the rest of you, but I thought it was rather obvious who the killer was going to be. I think Mendes put way too much emphasis on the murder which he set up at the beginning (and by the way, did he have to tell us all this at the beginning in the first place?). No one could have screwed up the amazing payoff at the end of the film though. i believe the main reason this film touched so many people must be the last scene. It is truly remarkable to behold!