Ultimately an empty vessel making a lot of noise.

Rating: 3/10 (25 March 2007)

If you think people with severe social deficiencies are amusing - perhaps you fell about laughing at "Rain Man" - then "As good as it gets" is just the movie for you.Obsessive - Compulsive Disorder is not funny,millions of people suffer from it in one form or another and I sincerely hope no decent and reasonable human being would dream of laughing at their symptoms. However,in the cinema,cloaked by anonymity and the herd instinct, audiences rolled in the aisles as Mr Jack Nicholson misused his considerable skills to caricature all the most obvious outward signs of this distressing illness.Shame on him. And shame on Mr Gregg Kinnear and Mr Cuba Gooding Jr for adding two more stereotypical gays to an already overcrowded field. Only Miss Helen Hunt escapes admonition in another role that could easily have slipped over into cliché as the single mother. She is so good she doesn't deserve to be in this movie. I can see why the Academy liked "As good as it gets",it has three flashy performances heavily flavoured with the ham it delights to reward so regularly,the prestige of Mr Nicholson's name and the gold - plated production values of an Aaaron Spelling TV soap of the 1980s. But it is ultimately an empty vessel making a lot of noise.