Americans adrift

Sandler on the run from pain in Sept. 11 drama 'Reign'

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published March 23, 2007 at midnight

Text size

More Movies

Audiences haven't responded especially well to movies dealing with Sept. 11. This isn't entirely a matter of denial or a result of the now-tired idea that audiences crave only escapism. I think it has something to do with the fact that we haven't forgotten Sept. 11; we know how quickly the raw pain of that terrible day can barrel back on us.

Enter Reign Over Me, a movie that draws its title from a Who song and deals with Sept. 11 by focusing on two New York dentists (Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle) who once were college roommates.

Sandler's Charlie Fineman lost his wife and three daughters on Sept. 11. They were in one of the planes that slammed into the World Trade Center. After that horror, Charlie became a loner who lives on money from the insurance settlement and rides around Manhattan on an electric scooter. He's constantly listening to music, earphones pulled over his head, iPod blasting. We may not have forgotten Sept. 11, but Charlie pours all his energy into blotting it from memory.

When his old roommate bumps into him, Charlie doesn't remember him. He says he doesn't remember being married. More than living in denial, Charlie's losing his sanity. He lives like an adolescent, playing video games or drumming along with a Bruce Springsteen record in his sparsely furnished apartment.

Director Mike Binder (The Upside of Anger) has hold of a powerful premise, and I'm not sure he knows exactly how to flesh it out. The movie often feels as if it's drifting, yet it has a sad, lingering presence.

Binder focuses most of the movie on the efforts of Cheadle's Alan Johnson to break through Charlie's defenses. But an odd thing happens. Alan, who's making fistfuls of money in a lucrative practice, begins to envy Charlie's freedom. Alan has a great wife (Jada Pinkett Smith) and two daughters, but he's suffocating under the weight of his success. He's gone numb.

This situation puts Charlie and Alan into a modified version of the buddy movie. Charlie introduces Alan to the addictive pleasures of video games and drags him to an all-night marathon of Mel Brooks movies. They're both regressing, but drama demands that Charlie eventually confront what he's been unwilling to face. Now and again, an outburst of rage from Charlie breaks this neo-adolescent spell.

Binder surrounds all this with a variety of New York characters. Liv Tyler plays a psychiatrist who works in the same building as Alan, who's always making halfhearted attempts to solicit her advice; she's too smart to fall for his all-too-transparent dodge. "I have this friend . . ."

Cheadle's portraying a character who falls under Charlie's spell, not that he doesn't have problems of his own. A wacked-out female patient (Saffron Burrows) accuses him of sexual assault, he doesn't communicate with his wife and his partners push him around. His practice centers on putting veneer on teeth, a cosmetic procedure that becomes a metaphor for his life. Alan's afraid that there might be nothing beneath the veneer of his comfortable existence.

Sandler, who broke new ground with Punch Drunk Love and continued turning it with Spanglish, still carries the baggage that loads down every comic who tries to get serious. I couldn't watch him without asking myself whether I was buying his mumbling, Rain Manish turn, and that suggests a level of distraction the movie didn't need. I found Sandler most convincing when touches of comedy peeked out from behind the facade, suggestions that Alan's intelligence hadn't entirely disappeared.

Reign Over Me is a little movie that tends to stumble when Binder spreads out. The final act, though leading to a somewhat ambiguous ending, brings up implausible behavior from Tyler's psychiatrist character and throws in an appearance from Donald Sutherland as a judge who has the kind of dialogue that's too obviously calculated to push an audience's buttons.

Reign Over Me is a strange Sept. 11-related movie that has no interest in re-creating events (as United 93 did) or extolling the virtues of ordinary men (World Trade Center). It has no discernible political point of view, and it can feel as disconnected from Sept. 11 as Charlie.

I guess that's the point: Most of the characters in this movie are well-heeled, but like the movie itself, they're somehow adrift. No one's worrying about much of anything, and they all desperately need to get in touch with their pain.

Dramatic departures

Like moths to a flame, comedians are irrepressibly drawn to the chance to show that they're not just a bunch of rubbery faces and silly voices. Sure, some get burned in the process, but others (Tom Hanks, Will Smith) have completely turned the tables on how they're perceived as actors and how they earn their $20 million paychecks. A look at how others have fared getting serious . . .

BILL MURRAY

• Hit: Lost in Translation (2003) Murray's wry and understated turn as a Hollywood star nursing a midlife crisis stands as the measuring stick for other comedians trying drama.

• Miss: The Razor's Edge (1984) Murray misfires as a World War I vet traveling the globe, searching for the meaning of life. The upside: He agreed to appear in Ghostbusters if the studio financed this flick.

• Where to put your money: Even What About Bob? ($63 million) made more money than Lost in Translation ($44 million).

ROBIN WILLIAMS

• Hit: Good Will Hunting (1997) OK, it was just a supporting role, but Williams' turn as a repressed therapist netted him his first Oscar.

• Miss: The Final Cut (2004) Williams is in full hangdog mode in this lame helping of sci-fi.

• Where to put your money: RV — a putrid comedy regarded as one of the worst films of 2006 — made $71 million; The Final Cut? $551,281.

JIM CARREY

• Hit: The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Carrey embodies the wistful, wounded soul who's erased from a girlfriend's memory.

• Miss: The Number 23 (2007) Carrey's performance was solid, but the script about a dogcatcher who sees trouble in the number 23 was anything but.

• Where to put your money: The universally lauded Eternal Sunshine: $34 million. The roundly despised Fun with Dick and Jane: $110 million.

JAMIE FOXX

• Hit: Ray (2004) Foxx got his role of a lifetime portraying Ray Charles, and he walked away with an Oscar.

• Miss: Any Given Sunday (1999) Foxx was fine as the brash QB, but why did Oliver Stone let the movie drone on for 2 hours and 50 minutes?

• Where to put your money: Who says Americans aren't a sophisticated lot? A biopic about a cultural legend earns $75 million, easily trumping Booty Call's $20 million box office.

STEVE MARTIN

• Hit: Shopgirl (2005) Martin didn't just star in the story about a lonely shopgirl and her older suitor; he also wrote the novella on which it was based and helped cast the film.

• Miss: Grand Canyon (1992) Martin was just one part of this Big Chill-like ensemble drama, so he only shares in the blame for its stench.

• Where to put your money: Oh, the ignominy! Sgt. Bilko's $30 million is three times as much as Shopgirl's box office.

BEN STILLER

• Hit: Permanent Midnight (1998) Stiller shoots up — and then shoots up some more — as heroin junkie Jerry Stahl.

• Miss: Your Friends and Neighbors (1998) Stiller enjoys chatting during sex in this unpleasant and vicious film about intertwining relationships.

• Where to put your money: Stiller's immersion into the sordid psyche of a junkie helped Permanent Midnight crack $1 million — barely. Mugging at a monkey in Night at the Museum, meanwhile, helped it sail past $245 million.

WILL FERRELL

• Hit: Stranger Than Fiction (2007) Ferrell proves convincing as a sweet IRS agent who's facing his own death in a smart movie that teeters between tragedy and comedy.

• Miss: Winter Passing (2005) Ferrell's fine, but the writing lacked spark and nuance in this dour coming-of-age ensemble flick.

• Where to put your money: Same year, vastly different paychecks: Stranger Than Fiction takes in $40 million; Talladega Nights makes about $100 million more than that. Shake and bake!

MIKE MYERS

• Hit: 54 (1998) Myers showed enough dramatic acting chops portraying Steve Rubell that he's now set to play the role of a lifetime in See Me Feel Me: Keith Moon Naked for Your Pleasure.

• Miss: Pete's Meteor (1998) Myers used a sketchy Irish accent playing a streetwise ex-junkie running from the mob in this little-known, grief-laden drama.

• Where to put your money: Myers would have to make more than 10 movies like 54 to equal the payday from one installment of Austin Powers.

EDDIE MURPHY

• Hit: Dreamgirls (2006) Murphy got to show a dark side as soul singer James "Thunder" Early and even got an invite (but no statue) at the Academy Awards.

• Miss: Harlem Nights (1989) We don't know if this train wreck of a movie was a drama, comedy or romance, but we blame Murphy for the confusion, since he wrote, directed and starred in this vehicle.

• Where to put your money: Norbit trails Dreamgirls by just $10 million — and is still in theaters. Look for it to pass the Oscar-worthy movie at the box office this week.

What about the women?

Good question. Fact is, few studios bank on females to carry their comedies to box-office glory, so most funny women have little choice but to get dramatic. A few examples:

• Jennifer Aniston - Made her name in a sitcom, but has found better roles in big-screen dramas (Friends with Money, The Good Girl).

• Bonnie Hunt - Her roots are in Second City improv, and her comedic talents have been highlighted in numerous (failed) sitcoms. But in theaters, she's been known to tackle some dramatic roles (Green Mile, Loggerheads).

• Whoopi Goldberg - Think Whoopi, you think of Eddie and Sister Act, but consider the comedian has had better luck (and box-office mojo) with dramatic roles in The Color Purple and Ghost.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News