What an inconsistent yet ultimately powerful film this is. Mike Binder's Reign Over Me attempts to reach the levels of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with its story of friendship, internal pain, and most importantly mental illness. While it doesn't quite reach that plateau, Reign Over Me still manages to be emotionally moving and, as of March 26, is one of the best movies of 2007.
Make no mistake about it, Reign Over Me is first and foremost about one man's mental illness, stemming from the tragic loss of his family. Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler) was a successful dentist with a wife, three daughters, a poodle, and a damn good life. That ended on September 11, when the plane his family was on flew into one of the twin towers. Now Charlie lives a reclusive life, subsists on chinese food and barq's root beer, and keeps himself busy with his album collection, the drums, his motor scooter and headphones, and a video game called "Shadow of the Colossus." He never drinks (assumedly because if he drinks, he will not be able to resist thinking about his family) and has no friends. Charlie spends his life pretending not to remember the past while attempting to forget.
By chance, Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle), Charlie's old college roommate, runs into him on the street (with his scooter and headphones of course). Charlie is so out of touch with reality that he doesn't even remember Alan at first. Alan takes Charlie for some coffee, they get to talking, and eventually they go back to Charlie's apartment and Alan begins to see how messed up Charlie really is. This doesn't stop Alan from playing "Shadow of the Colossus" until all hours of the night though, nor does it stop him from jamming with Charlie in his music room. For Alan, Charlie's life is an escape from the doldrums of his own life. Alan is, like Charlie was, a successful dentist with a loving family. However, his life is unbearably boring, and he feels as if he has no freedom to just "do guy things." His wife (Jada Pinkett Smith) loves him very much, but happens to be controlling. In Charlie, Alan finds a kind of release that he enjoys very much, and so he intentionally overlooks the very obviously reality that Charlie is mentally ill and needs some sort of help.
As the movie progresses, Alan suffers a tragedy of his own, realizes that Charlie needs help and seeks it from a colleague of his (Liv Tyler), and Charlie reaches a breaking point, ultimately attempting to kill himself. This all leads to an unfulfilling conclusion, in which Charlie, who is clearly not even close to being in a stable state of mind, is not only allowed to continue living his life (rather than go to a mental institution for one year), he is allowed to live by himself. I am sorry if I am being too much of a cynic, but it seems as if a guy who tries to kill himself and goes wacko even at the mention of his family might need more help than a good friend can give him.
There are other inconsistencies to be sure. Donna Remar (Saffron Burrows) was an almost entirely unnecessary character and I couldn't help but feel that she was initially thrown in as a joke, one that Binder couldn't figure out how to get rid of so he just kept her in as a character. The attempt to relate her tragedy to Charlie's tragedy was embarassing and almost insulting. Yes, adultery is a horrible thing, but compared with the death of one's entire family?
For as many problems as Reign Over Me has, there are just as many good things. The acting, for one, is incredible. Don Cheadle is one of the 10 best actors working today. Period. There is no way you could convince me otherwise. Take a look at what he has done recently: The Assassination of Richard Nixon, Crash, Hotel Rwanda, After the Sunset, the Ocean movies, and now Reign Over Me. Watch each of these films: not one of his characters is anywhere near similar. Cheadle can act with his body, with his eyes, in a way that very few others can. He can be funny, he can be noble, he can be angry, he can be simple...Cheadle is one of those rare breed of actors who can play any role and fit into it seemlessly.
Adam Sandler isn't on par with Bill Murray or Robin Williams on the list of comics who can play serious roles, or Jim Carrey for that matter, but he is clearly growing into a solid actor and his performance in Reign Over Me ranks with Punch Drunk Love as his best. The one thing Sandler can do as well as any actor working today is play someone in pain. Roger Ebert first mentioned this in his review of Happy Gilmore: "Happy Gilmore tells the story of a violent sociopath." Another remark from Ebert on Sandler, in his review of Punch Drunk Love: "The Sandler characters are almost oppressively nice, like needy puppies, and yet they conceal a masked hostility to society, a passive-aggressive need to go against the flow, a gift for offending others while in the very process of being ingratiating." This is Adam Sandler, and he embodies Charlie Fineman, finding a way to relate to Fineman's pain in a way that is too real to be "acting" in the conventional sense. It is eerie to watch Sandler in some of the film's more depressing sequences.
Certain moments in this film are so moving that people around me were brought to tears, and while Reign Over Me didn't affect me to that degree, I was still touched. Reign Over Me does not consistently hold its power. There are certain scenes, such as the scene with the judge (Donald Sutherland), that completely break the film's spell. It was a very bad decision to cast Sutherland, as he is too well known for such a small role and instead of watching the scene too many will be busy saying to the person next to them "hey that's Donald Sutherland!" As a whole though, this film works. There are many moments of comedic genius (the scene in front of the movie theater in particular) and many more moments of sadness. The film is beautifully shot, presenting a side of New York City that most people don't see. Mike Binder had a vision for this film that a more talented writer and director could have brought to life far more vividly. I couldn't imagine what a cinematic master like Ken Loach would have brought to this story. Reign Over Me is still a great film, one of the best of the year so far, but it is not the masterpiece it most certainly had the potential to be.
One final note: I've read many reviews stating that this film exploits 9/11. That is wrong, plain and simple. There is no exploitation in this film. In fact, 9/11 is only brought up two or three times at most. I had a problem with Reign Over Me using 9/11, but not because it exploited the tragedy. My problem was that it was used so little, that there was no point in bringing it up at all. Any plane crash would have sufficed, so it just annoyed me a little that Binder decided to use 9/11 when any kind of tragedy would have done just as well. If you want to say that is exploitation, fine. I just consider it a bad choice by an average director attempting to tell a great story.
