Worth watching, if you get past the beginning...

Rating: 9/10 (14 May 2000)

Not having seen all the films of 1999 that were up for best Picture, I can't say whether this film deserved it. Although it certainly was one of the better movies I have seen, there are plenty of places where the movie did not come through fully. The beginning was absolutely horrendous, and reminds me lame Network Sitcoms. However, once Lester started his turn-around, the movie picked up the pace, and everything started falling together.
The one other large problem I had was the treatment of the homosexuality theme. To say much more, I would have to spoil too much, IMO, but I'll say that it seemed too contrived. This is in contrast with most other plot developments, that flowed extremely smoothly and worked together well.
All in all, an excellent film, but not worthy of a 10/10 rating (Shawshank & Private Ryan are my only 10s). 9/10