August Rut (Avoid if you liked this film!)

Rating: 5/10 (24 July 2008)

August Rush is one of those feel good films that will cause any critic to be bum-rushed with accusations of pretentiousness and/or the malicious desire to ruin the magic. I can assure you that while I may accurately be accused of putting on the occasional air (well, not so occasional perhaps) it is not any inherent malice that inspired this criticism. Rather, it was revenge, completely futile and irrelevant revenge. Not only on the people who took what might have been a truly magical film and turned it instead into a Hallmark Channel meets MTV event with a PTL innuendo thrown in just to tick me off a little more; but also revenge on the people who gave it more than the 4 or 5 stars it deserves, because I actually based my decision to go see it on your ratings. YOU OWE ME!
OK. Some time has passed and I can admit the preceding was hyperbolic. When I wrote it I had just got back from the theater and the score was still ringing in my ears. It's not really that bad just bad enough, and nothing ticks me off more than an OK film that could have been great.
There are parts that I will admit are are very well done and a scattering of clever lines break through the fog of pallid dialog. But these sparkling moments fizzle out under the overbearing (and occasionally trite) incidental score, and the over-doctored script.
The feature songs, the central theme of the film, are actually cool for the most part. The guitar work is brilliant, and the rest is consuming and even inspiring when it is not sounding like corporate extract of alternative rock.
Robin Williams' character, though not given sufficient time to develop, was surprisingly complex, especially considering the three-chord repetition of the others. Like Jonathan Rhys Meyers for example, a "rocker" (or something) who spews portentous gibberish when he is not running around the film looking pensive and conflicted and emoting like a teenage girl. Or Keri Russell who is pretty and blond and apparently not much else except for a few good lines here and there.
Freddie Highmore might be a good actor, I don't really know because most of his parts are just K-Pax/Rain Man idiot-savant type staring into the distance before he learns how to play guitar or piano in a matter of minutes. But I really can't blame him for the failure of the script. I generally give kids the benefit of the doubt.
What is most frustrating is that there are occasional moments of  well, I wouldn't say brilliance, but definitely good writing. But it gets stomped out of existence by the next hackneyed moment or drowned in the films manipulative attempts to shove it's message down our collective throats.
Note to filmmakers: You don't have to beat the audience over the head with your message. Let the play say the thing.