Product: Keeping the Faith (2000)
Rating: 5.0
1 word = awesome
The next time you feel totally hopeless and sad over the endless stream of bad, unfunny comedies and pathetic, unmoving romances I suggest you watch Keeping the Faith. It'll put a smile on your face, a tear in your eye, and hope for the future of movies back in your heart.In short, this movie is awesome. It is a superb blend of side-splitting laughs, happy ending romance, and good old-fashioned priest-rabbi jokes. The script is probably one of the best things to come out of the romantic comedy genre in a while, and impressively enough is not resigned to basing all of its jokes solely on the priest-rabbi thing. From physical scenes to straight dialogue this movie never stops delivering the good times. But it is not strictly punch line after punch line - amongst all of this humor there is a genuine story of friendship, family, love, humanity and yes! even religion. And, unlike so many movies today, there is actual character development and an ability to become attached to those characters.Of course, a lot of the attachment you have to the people on the screen is due to the awesome people who portray those characters. Ben Stiller and Edward Norton were the PERFECT picks for the lead roles of rabbi and priest, respectively. They worked together ingeniously, playing off one another in the most amusing and remarkable manner. Jenna Elfman played Anna beautifully, and is so totally adorable and endearing that even if you want to hate her because she is so beautiful, you can't. She's a great comic, and holds her own against Ben Stiller who I personally think is one of the funniest kids around. I'm willing to bet the farm that a good deal of the scenese between any combination of these three was filled with improvisation (such as the scene where Norton drifts into a Dustin-Hoffman-as-Rainman manner of speaking, just for kicks). The three are fabulous together.My highest suggestion - don't miss this movie. See it, rent it, buy it....whatever. But chances are you haven't seen anything this good in a while, and won't again very soon.