Good People

Action packed fast moving drama with good acting young JamesFranco, Katie Hudson and Tom Wilkinson.

"Whenever you find a pot of gold there's always a monster guarding it." Tom (Franco) and Anna (Hudson) are married and struggling. They are weeks away from losing their house and the job market is dry. They are cleaning up an apartment of one of their tenants who died they find a huge bag of cash. After going back and forth on what to do with the bag they decide to just take what they need to keep the house for another month. Little by little they begin to take more but then someone comes looking for the money. Keep in mind when you read this that I watch every movie we order for the store. There are at least 2 movies a month that come out with the exact idea. The only difference this one has is that big name actors are in this. People find a bag of money with like $1 million in it and think what should we do...we will only spend a little of it to help us out. Soon most of the money is gone then they act shocked when someone comes looking for it. I have always wondered if a bad movie can be made good by adding great actors. According to this movie the answer is no. This is still a b-rate overdone movie with better acting. Overall, a movie that has been done so many times that nothing can help the repetition of the plot. I give this a C+.

I liked this movie. It was realistic fiction that was entertaining to watch. There is excellent acting among all the main characters, and the story line is so believable. The only reason I can not rate it a 10 is that this movie was oh so predictable. As usual, there is no honesty among thieves, which is the premise of this movie. Then, of course, the underdog always wins. The climax of the movie was very reminiscent of "Home Alone," so I knew what was coming the moment that I saw the set towards the end. The predictability is the only reason I can think of the movie having such a low overall rating. However, when watching realistic fiction, extravagant happenings would convert the realistic to ridiculous. It stayed true to it's genre. I would recommend this movie to all movie-lovers, but I would be shocked if it got an Oscar.

Long story short - the movie definitely deserves a solid 5 in my opinion, I have no reason to go lower and to go higher neither, to be honest I would have given it a 4, if not for the graphic and well done killings on a few occasions, which I haven't seen being done in that manner for a while on the screen, but otherwise the plot was just too generic and there is no point of producing movies of this kind anymore, unless it's based on facts, or biography... Honestly how much more innovation can you bring to this particular genre, just swapping actors and changing titles endlessly only to attract dumb masses to the cinemas? I guess that's the whole point...

If you have watched your share of thrillers, more likely than not the premise of "Good People" - ordinary people stumbling across a large amount of cash belonging to criminals - will be somewhat familiar to you. It certainly seemed familiar to me. But it's not just the premise that's familiar, but also how the movie plays out, with its various characters and supposed plot twists and turns. The climax comes as no surprise, since it's telegraphed very early in the movie as to what will happen and where it will happen.

Still, I must give credit where credit is due. The acting by all the participants is professional and effective; the bad guys do come across as acceptably nasty pieces of work. The movie also has reasonable production values for a movie that didn't have a megabudget. And the story, though very familiar and predictable, does go from scene to scene at a fairly brisk pace and leaves no lulls. So if you don't mind seeing the same story and characters all over again, you'll probably find this movie a fairly well crafted retread.