elements of shawshank, heat, good will hunting and frankness

Rating: 8/10 (7 September 2010)

This was a real good movie, each character was subtly played out, there were not usual types of 'bad guys', everyone had good intentions, yet the experiences of life had given them some issues, some 'flaws' - or are they flaws?
This movie puts you in the judge's position and plays out humanity in front of you, the whole human family is there: the respectable one, the wise elder, the mess about, the loyal friend, the lover-friend, the child, the old-school buddies. All playing out their lives in your neighbourhood, and when you interact with them it isn't artificial, it isn't 'a scene', its real life, it's your everyday.
In this movie young learn from the old (Affleck, Freeman) and the old from the young. It's a radical type of coming-of-age drama, but it is not directed at one individual character but to all of us. In this sense, it has elements of shawshank, the loyalty between the two main characters, and for this reason also heat (the last scene with deniro/pacino when the latter holds the hand of his criminal friend that he just shot), it has the comraderie and love between Affleck and Damon and the feelings of that scene when Affleck drives by and Damon finally doesn't come out the house (he has finally left them), etc.
I take films in their whole and it brought out the feelings of all these movies for me, and i think Ben Affleck did really well here, he has grown up with watching all these movies and has obviously been shaped by them on a personal level, and i think this movie for him is personal.