The Freak's Rating: B- : Film digestion and reflection is a practice every critic must learn. If you rate every film the second you leave the theater, your reviews will be incredibly jaded. Over the years I have learned to be able to discard some emotional pull that films attempt in order to evaluate. When not doing so, The Blind Side will slip into the A category. However, if you honestly examine, you will find a multitude of flaws.
The Blind Side has marketed itself as three seperate entities, a family film, a Christian film and a true Sports story. It succeeds at two of those three, in genre only. As a family film, TBS hits on all the right cylinders. Regardless of what its marketing machine would have you believe, this isn't a Christian film. With the exception of saying grace at the dinner table and the children attending a Christian school, there is little mention of God. Having such a message loud and clear can sometimes detract when done incorrectly (as some users on this site say Facing The Giants did). However, I could have done with at least a couple mentions. There is more emotion behind the story of Ferdinand the bull than God, though there are many opportunities to draw Christianity into the storyline. This is an oversight of the film's capacity to bring this message forth and I'm sad to see they didn't pull off. I would venture to guess that somewhere on a cutting room floor is a scene that has more of a faith-based message than any other in the film.
The third, and easily most entertaining genre the film pulls off is the true sports story of Michael Ohur. If you think the opening weekend of the film wasn't timed with the Baltimore Ravens/Indianapolis Colts game, you are quite nieve. I fell victim, eagerly anticipating the game. I spent more time in that game watching the offensive tackle than I ever have before. This kid is insanely talented. I must say it is incredible that a film made it into the mainstream based on an offensive tackle. Football films are typically team-based, or focus on running backs or quarterbacks, but never a lineman.
Acting is subpar with the exception of the film's lead, Quinton Aaron, and believe it or not Tim McGraw. Sandra Bullock is better than you'd imagine at the southern accent, but when it does slip it is incredibly bad at doing so and completely pulled me out of the movie. Supporting roles in the film are as weak as they come. Though the comic relief role of the film, Mike's younger brother SJ, is nice, it was overdone. A cute little boy does a great job with delivery, but he is overused and would have been better had they eased up on his scenes a tad.
I wanted desperately to rate the film higher, but there are too many flaws to do so. The real strength this film provides is the courage of the studios to cast big names in a "Christian" film. Though the film falls far short of being a film that could influence someone's faith, it is a far better venture from the genre than the typical Kirk Cameron crap that is released.
Jen's Rating: B+ : Much better than I expected! It helped watching this movie in a full theater with reactions. I think the rating would be a bit lower had I watched it at home. Anyway, I expected something very cheesy and sentimental with poor acting, bad editing and sub-par directing. But honestly I didn't see much flaw in much of anything. It was much funnier than I expected too. Plus I think it's so neat how now we can actually watch him play on the Ravens!! How cool is that? I love football :) What if they made a movie on a different player from a different team each season, how neat would that be?
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