Too Intense For Young Children With Little Meaning

Rating: 6/10 (30 November 2008)

Sandra Bullock & Tony Danza head an ensemble diversified cast in this movie set in Christmas time LA. Paul Hagis whose writing work runs the gamut from good in Million Dollar Baby to poor in Quantum Of Solace directs his 7th film here. He wrote the screenplay as well.
While this is a good intense drama which tries to look realistically at racism in a modern diversified LA, it does get too melodically preachy towards the end of the film. It presents many views of racial hate but does not really get deep enough into its characters to show the real meaning from which the hate stems.
The production obviously has some expense thrown into the film and the money shows. At least this is better than some of Hagis other work but when you look at the film as a whole, it is as inconsistent as his resume. Hagis worked on Flags of Our Fathers with Eastwood which is the weaker of the two films (Letters From Iwo Jima being the better other). Million Dollar Baby for all its good stuff, has too much card board in its main characters too.
It appears Hagis work varies depending upon who he is working with. Here where he is on his own, the result is decidedly a mixed bag. There is a lot of drama & meat hung out here through the story lines, but the movie just sort of ends which in a way is like the real world but since there is obviously some contrived stuff here, that ending is not satisfactory for this film. The film dilutes it's main powerful racism message in an effort to be "politcally correct" which comes off as melancholy.