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Fearless is a film about how one event can change lives forever. It's a film about hope, about those who bring it and lose it, a film about love and ultimately a film about the kindness of strangers.

Jeff Bridges is Max Klein, a victim of a horrific air crash that kills his best friend. However, he emerges from the accident a changed man, believing he has found a previously lost spirituality. He is no longer allergic to strawberries, something that nearly killed him as a child, for example. From here, he helps others come to terms with their loss, including Rosie Perez's Calrla.

Peter Weir is probably one of the best filmmakers currently working. He has yet to make a bad film, and even struggles to make mediocre ones. However, Fearless is something a cut above his usual high standard. Posing genuinely thought-provoking questions, yet never didactic or vague, Fearless makes you reconsider your own actions and their affect on other people.

The cast is uniformly excellent, with Bridges and Rosselini (as his wife) particularly good. Perez's much maligned Carla is solid enough. Look out for an early, rather excellent performance by Benecio Del Toro, too.

The film ends on an incredibly moving note. Incredibly beautiful and true, Fearless should be considered,a long with Gilliam's The Fisher King, one of the most overlooked gems of modern times.

When I first saw "Fearless" in a movie theater, I believe there were about 20 to 30 other moviegoers in the theater on a weekday afternoon. It was in it's second week in theaters. After the credits rolled, I heard a lot of weeping from the small but vocal audience.

Maybe the film flopped because some people expected a 1970's-style disaster flick with cardboard characters, laughable dialog and unknown extras & doubles performing dangerous stunts.

It's been almost eight years since watching "Fearless" for the first time. This is one of only 5 movies I actually own in my very small tape library.

Director Peter Weir amazes me. With a few exceptions (I didn't like "Dead Poets Society" and I haven't seen "Green Card"), he has always walked on a tightrope when it comes to telling a story. It might not result in a "satisfying" ending but when you think about what was presented two hours earlier, it makes a lot of sense. It's a logical and very fascinating progression.

I believe that Jeff Bridges can (almost) do no wrong. His character may not be very likable but put yourself in his character's shoes and you may understand the reasons why he believes that he is "fearless".

I haven't seen Isabella Rossellini's performance in "Blue Velvet" but it makes me wonder if her performance in that film beats her role as the caring but very confused wife of Jeff Bridges' character. She's definitely the heart of "Fearless". I cared for her. I felt empathy; her confusion of what her husband was doing to himself, her family and herself. She's on the outside trying her best to understand what it was like to survive a plane crash. But at the same time, not totally understanding what it was like to be on the ill-fated flight. Rossellini gave a glowing performance.

Rosie Perez's performance as the distraught woman who lost her young son in the crash was incredible. Unlike some people in this world, I do like Perez (thick Spanish accent and all). What really impressed me was how she captured the depth of losing her child. There have been some films & TV movies that have captured the effects of a family losing a spouse or adult child. There haven't been as many to deal with the loss of a child as well as "Fearless" did. Perez hasn't had a role with this much depth in a long time. I was pleasantly surprised when she received an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actress, the movie's only nomination.

The unrequited bond between Bridges' and Perez's characters was fascinating to watch. They survived something that their love ones will never understand. In the end, the two need to understand that despite their losses, they are still alive in this world and somehow they need to find a way to get back to reality.

Screenwriter Rafael Yglesias, who wrote the novel, captured the complexity of crash survivors almost flawlessly. One weak link: John Turturro had the thankless job of playing the underwritten role of the psychiatrist.

When a film like "Fearless" even inspires a music video (Brian McKnight's "Back At One"), then you know that this movie will have a lasting effect and with cable, VHS & DVD, it'll never be forgotten. I certainly haven't forgotten it.

I got to tell you. This is the kind of movie that will make you cry for like two hours. It was a film that dealt with people who lost their loved ones and how they cope with the loss. I was blown away from Jeff Bridges's performance. He could have downright earned a Oscar nomination. I thought all of the stars in this film was great. I thought that this was Peter Weir's best film since Witness. When i normally sees movies that are tearjerkers, I normally don't cry. But, after I saw this film, I was in buckets of tears. The direction was great, the acting was superb. I think it's true what they say about films. When it comes to writing a film, it's very easy to make people cry but it's heard to make people laugh. Out of that subject, it was a powerful film and I highly recommend it.

10 out of 10.

Other reviews I have read here do a great job of summarizing the plot and key elements of this film. I just want to reiterate, first, how incredible the cast is. Working in a plot that demands attention to and awareness of subtleties, *every* actor, on down to the smallest part, puts forth flawless performances, and are directed brilliantly. If I was John Turturro, I'd have calmed it down a little, but if he did that, he wouldn't be John Turturro. :)

Isabella Rossellini is given the strongest role of her career (I mean, in *Blue Velvet*, she was scorching and daring, but she was played as a bit of an archetype and dream figure, and not as a woman struggling through a life crisis in quite so identifiable a way). Rather than fall prey to playing her role as an insensitive wife who doesn't understand the extraordinary passage her husband is undergoing, she is given the chance to really be a hero in her own right. She could *never* understand--but she tries to--and gives extraordinary credibility in a role of struggling to give what she can as Jeff Bridges' Max Klein hurtles himself into his obsessive self-made universe from his ordeal and survival. When it's clear she can no longer do that, she becomes a noble warrior to fight for her own sanity and that of her son. The procession of her character is flawless and every moment feels right.

The interplay between Rossellini and Rosie Perez is played out with unexpected honesty, restraint and brilliance. Perez' Carla has her own parallel situation, with a husband who completely can't understand why she won't exploit the situation for all she can get in court (a great early small performance from Benecio Del Torro). He is, like Rossellini, troubled by the bizarre and nonobvious intimacy that has developed between his wife and Jeff Bridges, two people whose lives might never have ordinarily crossed. Perez is, as has been mentioned elsewhere here, devastating. Her grief over the loss of her son is sustained and utterly utterly credible.

This brings us to Jeff Bridges. Man, oh man, this is his career masterpiece performance--arguably the greatest leading acting role of the 1990's. He *gets* what writer Rafael Yglesias and Peter Weir are narrowly aiming for here, and it's something no other movie has approached that I've seen. It is--the instantaneous and seemingly lifelong bond that develops between those who have been through a life-changing crisis, and how that can completely absorb them to the exclusion of *everything* else in their lives. What sounds like a subtle point here is **nailed** by Yglesias and Weir, and I can't imagine another actor who could have gotten what that feels like. I know from personal experience--mine was nothing like a plane crash--but the phenomenon that this movie ventures to explore that I just described, which may seem like mostly bizarre behavior shifts in Bridges' character to those who haven't experienced what I'm talking about--is in fact as real as love, fear, or passion itself. What Bridges realizes in putting together Max Klein is that he's *utterly* lucid--he feels as though he sees things as clearly as he ever has in his life and *never* wants to let that clarity go to revert to a more "rational" way to confront the trauma he has gone through.

Others have mentioned the "why didn't this get bigger press" issue. The studio was quite nervous that this was an art house movie and didn't promote it as heavily as they might have. It actually did quite well at the box office initially and early advocacy for Bridges and Weir to get Oscars were definitely out in the review stream, but this had the misfortune of being released *just* before a little movie called *Schindler's List*, which summarily grabbed the cinematic spotlight and completely eclipsed everything else at the Oscars.

Director Peter Weir himself considers this his greatest work and was greatly stung by what he considered the slight it was given by Hollywood and the public. In many ways it has shaped a cynicism towards Hollywood he has had ever since, and it would be five years before he'd find it in himself to direct another film.

Films like this, where the main character survives a plane crash, reveal more of how unprepared a hunter gatherer mind is to the trauma of the modern world, let alone after a traumatic event. When the fight or flight mechanism is unable to function, when there's nowhere to run and nothing can be done, the stress and anguish experienced must be one of the most painful emotions a human mind can experience. We also get another perspective, perhaps one more recognisable, through the helplessness of losing a loved one, a young child, in the same tragedy, completely unprepared and instant.

Yet we continue to push, push, push, backing ourselves into metaphorical corners with no means to escape or defend ourselves. This is deep introspective film making, as relevant as ever, with great performances from some truly great actors.