Despite one or two flaws, worth watching for some excellent performances and a fairly original story

Rating: 8/10 (7 September 2006)

Having been meaning to see this film for a long time I finally managed to last week and was largely impressed.
The film is very entertaining and has many memorable scenes of great acting and writing that are some of the best out there. I don't want to get into the plot other than say it is fairly plausible and original, borrowing from other genres but never feeling like its something we've seen before.
First of all, I'll talk about the films most impressive aspects. The best thing about this film by far is Robin Williams. I haven't seen too much of his dramatic work but his performance here is certainly the best I've seen him give and was definitely deserving of his Oscar. He wonderfully delivers some of the best emotional scenes in the film and is brilliant in virtually every scene he's in. Similarly, Minnie Driver is impressive as Will's girlfriend and brings a lot of welcome humour and credibility to her role and, along with Williams, keeps the film mature and not too immature- something I'll talk about soon. Similarly, Stellan Skarsgard is solid as a mathematician both jealous and fascinated by Will's talents.
The other good thing about the film is many scenes in the film. Many of the scenes between Will and Sean are well written and their is a fascinating and compelling speech made by Damon towards the end of the film on his refusal to work for the government.
The always excellent Danny Elfman delivers a very good score also.
Unfortunately these good aspects are held back by the completely unnecessary amount of gratuitous swearing throughout and average performances of Damon and Ben Affleck. If profanity is done tastefully and humorously (as shown by Quentin Tarantino) or is said out of desperation then that can help the material work. Here it doesn't. I didn't keep count but this film has an unbelievable amount of bad language that added nothing to the story and just felt like it was being used to fill dead spots in a conversation.
Another problem is the character of Will. He is far too cocky, arrogant and foul-mouthed to evoke sympathy and I believe his character should have been altered to make him a little more likable. Similarly Damon (despite one or two decent emotional scenes) is not very impressive either. Then again, thats probably his characters fault. The most annoying aspect of the film is Ben Affleck's character who I actually got so annoyed with I felt as though his screen time should have been shortened by half. Like Damon's, his character is the complete opposite to the one he plays in Armageddon and is largely unlikable and unappealing given he acts so stupidly throughout. Affleck (again, despite one good scene towards the end) therefore is unable to bring likability to his role either.
However, thanks to an original and intriguing story, some excellent performances by Williams, Driver and Skarsgard, the film is well worth watching.
8/10