Horatio Alger blah blah blah boot-straps blah blah blah

Rating: 6/10 (3 January 2009)

Through will-power, single-minded focus, and a determination to provide for his son the father he himself never had in his youth, Chris Gardner does all he can to turn a life of seeming ineptitude at all things into something that "Civilisation" values: earning power and a grasp of those things which make an existence "a life".
Part "Mary Poppins", part Mickey Rooney / Judy Garland 'let's put on a show in that old barn' styles movie, this is filled with enough happiness (sic.) for anyone to have a diabetic attack during. Those of you looking for re-assurance in the superiority of the free-market economy and/or the American way of life (cf: Mr. Alger, Mr. Hughes, et al) will be more than able to present this at your next meeting of the local Rotary or NRA.
Good performances from all, with only the wife to annoy (and she's the weakest one  and nearly the sole female  in the bunch), you'll be impressed with Smith as well as the phenomenon playing his son.
Watching this in January of 2009 makes one wonder what would happen if this was attempted from the same starting position today instead of the early 1980s of Reaganomics, and the thought that 'all it takes is just determination and your efforts will be rewarded makes the cynic apoplectic, but this is better than reading the Wall Street coverage of late, so suck back a bottle of Chablis and line of coke and re-live those crazy days of 20 years ago when 'greed was good'.