Mr. Gibb

A lonely teacher. A blonde student. A kidnapping .

Good premises for a reasonable film but, maybe, not enough for decent development of story.

I saw this film being teacher myself and I recognized crumbs of teachers life, especially for meritous work of Tim Daly. Unfortunatelly, , it is obvious , the director knows not use the poential of story. The development is poor, the result - just modest. Maybe, to high effort to convince the viewer and not the most inspired tools and skills for that.

It wasn't awful, but this movie is pretty forgettable. With only a couple of exceptions, the characters came off as two dimensional, their actions made no sense and seemed totally unrealistic. The actors did a passable job with what they had. The dialogue had a few chuckles but largely felt short of witty, and it couldn't seem to commit to comedy and instead comes off as a not so compelling drama with a few comic moments. I will say the end was unexpected to me, but it didn't really make up for the flaws.

Of course, Hayden Panettierre is really hot, and if you enjoy looking at her this movie is probably worth seeing just for that.

Maybe the idea was good, but the result is just plain stupid. Unlikable characters, bad acting, poor direction, slow development and an end that's supposed to be a surprise, but it's just another blunder. I was angry after losing my time watching this crap. I should have stopped after 15 minutes, at most. Mea culpa!

let's get the good stuff out of the way first...

the story line and the writing both are amazing... in the hands of a more capable director, this movie could've been an excellent movie.

the story has all the elements that could attract a viewer, from the good building of the problem, the attraction, the deliberate misguiding to the twists at the end. (but no comedy whatsoever)..

but it was really really really bad directed, and you can notice that from the very first shot of the film. a summer trained director trying his luck, and thinking that having a star like Hayden Panettiere can sell the movie - which i don't know why she agreed to do the movie in the first place?? being that she's totally in her prime...

there are some characters in the movie that were in it only for the purpose of the felling of an empty 5 minutes or something, there are characters that appeared in the beginning of the movie, and it was set in my mind that this character will play an important rule in the story line, but suddenly i didn't see that character again!!!!

overall, it was below medium, and really what a sham, it could've been something really good.

my vote is 3 out of 10

Mr. Ronald Gibb (Tim Daly) is a depressed slovenly widowed high school history teacher. His students are bored. His neighbor Holly (Paula Devicq) is interested in him. He has a crush on popular cheerleader Ally Palmer (Hayden Panettiere). She's in a TV ad for her father (William Sadler)'s used car lot. Smart alec Amber (Sarah Steele) teases him about it. Ally breaks up with her boyfriend Brett and Gibb drives her home. Janitor Gabe (Dan Hedaya) notices them together. She gives him a kiss. Then she's kidnapped from her home. Amber publishes a picture of the kiss and Gibb is suspended from school.

The production is a bit weak. Director David Ostry doesn't have a compelling style. The movie tries to be quirky but mostly fails. It's also not dark enough. I follow this for the kidnapping mystery but not much else.