A somewhat disjointed, clichéd but oddly likeable movie.

Rating: Null/10 (2 January 2004)

The cast of this movie (Matt Damon, Will Smith and Charlize Theron), are all actors that I think have some level of skill. After seeing the great 'Quiz Show' by the film's director Robert Redford I have to say I had very high expectations of this movie. Well, my expectations were satisfied, although I could not tell you why. In my opinion, this movie is disjointed and clichéd. It constantly confuses the viewer as to who is the main character, it is filled with long, deep and meaningful speeches with emotional music, mystical philosophies and more confusion as to how any of the characters work. Its pacing is quite appalling, it races through the most important part of the movie, then spends much too long on the spiritual and philosophical speeches. The narration gets annoying as it constantly interrupts the story to explain what could have been easily shown by more character time. In fact, apart from the acting, there seems to be very ittle to like about this film. Then why did I enjoy it so much? Like I said, the acting is good, despite the fact that the best actor isn't any of the main actors. It is in fact the young kid, Hardy Greaves (played by J. Michael Moncrief) who steals the show. But I don't think that that was the reason I enjoyed this film. I guess it could have been Will Smith's mysteriousness or maybe the supporting crew, like the old fat men of Savannah, or the maybe it was just the odd comic line that this film has. I am hoping (just as a matter of principle) that it wasn't the obvious feel-good ending, because I like to think that I am no longer affected by the Hollywood combination of an actor acting happy and emotional music, but maybe I am. Whatever it is, I did enjoy this film, despite all of its disjoints and clichés. 7/10