"Reign Over Me"

Happy New year to all! I’ve got lots of reviews to catch up on, so let’s get to it! My first offering to the New Year, is a different type of movie staring Adam Sandler as Charlie Fineman, and Don Chealde as Charlie’s old college roommate Alan Johnson called “Reign over me.”

When I first heard about this film, I thought the concept of the story was intriguing, but I had my doubts as to Adam Sandler’s ability to take on this kind of role considering his past body of work. While his comedic style of acting still managed to take over most of the scenes, there was a few that seemed to cross over from comedic, to serious.

“Reign over me,” is a story about a man who lost his wife and daughter in the 9/11 tragedy. Having lost everything in his life that was important to him, Charlie lapses into a deranged state of mind. His only outlet to keep from completely going over the deep edge is his music, and oddly enough video games. One day Charlie bumps into his old college room mate, and the story begins from there. Allan Johnson a successful partner in a dental practice takes a strange interest in trying to bring his old room mate back to the world of reality. There are strange and uncomfortable scenes throughout the movie in which Charlie lashes out, some times violently at the slightest bit of some one trying to give him physiological help.

A side story is the in laws of Charlie’s wife who are trying to have him committed so they can try and take over the very large amount of money Charlie has. Along with that there is also anther tangent that I thought was kind of off the wall where a woman tries to seduce Allan during a dental appointment. The woman finally ends up playing a good guy (girl) role in the end, but the conflict that ensues when Allan coldly stops her advancements cause friction at work, and home. Along with the woman, there is also tension in the Johnson house hold when Charlie starts to accept his old room mate as a friend, and calls on him to go out at all hours of the day and night.

What is made very apparent in this film is the catastrophic loss that Charlie suffered from the horrors of 9/11. All of the thousands of lives that were affected by the most tragic day in American history are brought back up to the surface, and thrown directly into the faces of the people watching this film. Some may see this as a good thing because we should always be reminded of the pain and suffering of those families that dealt with this kind of loss, and yet others may find it an uncomfortable reminder of something that they would rather just forget.

While I expected something a little more from Director Mike Binder (director for Minority report) “Reign over Me,” is just strange and interesting enough to be something worth watching, but it will also never be confused with a movie of the year.

My rating for this movie is 7.00 out of 10.00