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Directed by: Ryan Fleck Starring: Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps, Anthony Mackie Half Nelson details the relationship between an inner-city teacher named Dan Dunne (played by Gosling) and one of his female students, Drey, (played by Epps) after she inadvertantly discovers his secret: Dan is a druggie! This is a hard movie to place. It tries to show the level of commitment Dan has as a teacher in the inner city, struggling to help the kids make something of themselves while contrasting his level of addiction to the very drugs he wants them to avoid. He is trapped in-between, struggling to hide his secret, and just function from day to day. He finds an unlikely friend in Epps' character. I liked some parts of this movie, but as a whole, it was awful. His personal life was a ruin, his family and friends (even his lover) were all impacted by his addictions. Dan finds out that Drey is starting to hang around a bad sort, and in his fight to free her of a life mired in crime, he tries to hold onto Drey's respect as she is the only true witness to his drug laden descent. He has no 'moral' ground on which to stand on to pull Drey up and out of her crimes. It is an interesting subject, and could have been better if the film wasn't Ryan Gosling wiping sweat off his face for three quarters of the film. Lots of lingering shots, and a number of scenes without much dialogue make this more of a moving series of stills in which nothing extraordinary happens. It doesn't even give you a nice a to z resolution. I can't argue with the Oscar for acting, Ryan did a great job, but in the end, it was boring. I barely made it through. It's too bad, I really wanted to like this film RATING: 1.5 PROS: Well acted, psychological downspiral of drug use done well. CONS: Wanders around looking for its purpose and, ultimately, finds none. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://imdb.com/title/tt0468489/ ZenMaster fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Feb 27, 2007 |
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Feb 27, 2007 18:11
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