Good Fences

Rarely have so many talented people worked together to make movie that is such a mess. Everyone associated with Good Fences -- not just Glover and Goldberg, but also director Dickerson and screenwriter Ellis -- has done much better work in the past, and will do better work again in the future. But this pudding has no theme, as Churchill said. It is neither comedy nor drama, neither funny nor moving. If it has any message, it is that all white people are foolish and that black people are racially inauthentic if they value success, accomplishment, wealth, or even suburban comfort. The movie seems to agree with the character in the Robert Frost poem ("Mending Wall") that "good fences make good neighbors"; its tone argues that integration was a failure, and that blacks should stick to neckbones and avoid brie. But the narrator of Frost's poem is wiser, and says, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down."

I like Danny Glover. I think Whoopi Goldberg is brilliant. I thought I'd love this movie, especially since the wrapper specifically says that "the laughs don't stop in this hilarious comedy." Wrong. This was painful.

We've seen aliens meet the neighbors in several forms and trailer trash meets the neighbors. When George Jefferson met Archie Bunker, it was hilarious. Surely the same story could be told in a wealthier community and be funny. This was just sad. Instead of being amused, you feel pain for Whoopi's family and pity for her unenlightened neighbors.

I didn't feel that Tom's (Danny Glover) actions at the end followed either from his history (revealed, I think, too late) or from his prejudice. The lighting on Tom's face, by the way, is about as subtle as the foreshadowing in the 19th century gothic. If you can see it, it doesn't work.

I've seen the racial conflicts of the 1950's-1970's done as drama (Mississippi Burning, In the Heat of the Night, A Patch of Blue) and I've seen it done as comedy (previously mentioned All in the Family, certain episodes of MASH, and any other quality show from the period). The fact that this wasn't funny has less to do with the topic than with the writing.

I have actually never seen or even heard about this 2003 movie titled "Good Fences" from writer Trey Ellis and director Ernest R. Dickerson before now in 2022, as I had the opportunity to watch it. And seeing that the movie had Danny Glover and Whoopi Goldberg in the leading roles, of course I opted to watch the movie.

Well, "Good Fences" was sort of a mixed bag of nuts. The movie started out rather well and was pretty good up until about midway through. At that point the movie just sort of settled into a slump and started to lose its momentum, becoming somewhat of a slow paced drag to sit through the last half.

The acting performances in the movie were good, and both Danny Glover and Whoopi Goldberg carried the movie quite well with their performances.

Right, well I can now tick this movie off of the list, however I can in all honesty say that this is not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time.

All in all, then "Good Fences" was sort of a less than mediocre movie experience. My rating of "Good Fences" lands on a four out of ten stars.

Given the two big stars,this was a monumental disappointment. Predictable, stale, and full of cliches Boring!

I believe some of the past "critics" are delving too deep. I don't believe this movie was supposed to be a upbeat comedy of such. This is a dark comedy/drama and a portrayal of the way a specific family dealt with engaging with the white community in a time when that was not easily done. I believe the scenes with 'Mabel' showing the bored housewife over the course of many years shows how more and more depressed over the situation she has become. She has lost touch with herself, her identity, her roots. She makes a statement saying that all she has to do is "listen to Tom" instead of listening to God. The son feels as if he is out of touch with his "people" and struggles to regain that sense of himself, while the sister shows that in the end, she has rejected all that makes her Black. Tom has let the influence of his childhood (almost getting lynched, struggling against white America) influence how he acts in the present. He rejects the things that make him unique (being Black), even though those things impact everything about him daily. This movie has little to do with "racial motivations" and such. It has more to do with Blacks finding their way while not losing themselves in a predominately white world. This movie is a great movie to show the other side of the coin. Black people (and minorities of color) have to deal with trying to fit in to multiple "lives" and find a way to incorporate all of them without losing a sense of self. Danny and Whoopi did a great job of portraying this, even if it did obviously make others thumb up their noses.