Shadowboxer

Shadowboxer Mr. Black's Grade: B Starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Helen Mirren.

First-time director Lee Daniels, producer of two challenging projects, Monster's Ball and The Woodsman tries his hand behind the lens. Mirren plays a female assassin who is diagnosed with cancer, and decides to carry out a final killing assisted by Gooding.

Shadowboxer certainly is a dark film - think Prizzi's Honor but with a very different tone - but Helen Mirren handles this 'unique' relationship with tenderness and dignity. I thought the ending wasn't terribly suspenseful, and it should have been. I kept trying picture how a different, and more experienced director would handle it. A number of crew members were there for the Q/A, including the director. Heck, even a PA came in from Philly (you keener!) Wes Bentley was scheduled to co-star but dropped out.

His role was filled by Cuba Gooding Jr., who succeeded in erasing Snow Dogs from my memory. He is very good here, playing it straight and very cold. In the Q/A afterwards he talked about the differences between doing comedy and drama. He said that he is pursuing roles that allow humor to come from the actions of the character - like in this film - and not obvious comedy. He enjoyed the laughter that his character got from the crowd at the screening, when his character was reacting to situations within the plot and not 'trying' to be funny.

Okay, this isn't a review but I couldn't put this under goofs...and it's been bugging me.

In the scene where Clayton's lawyer (?) is in a hallway arguing with a woman wanting money, she says, "Define 'soon,'" and the lawyer says it's a noun. That is grammatically incorrect. "Soon," is an adverb. Phew. Glad I finally got that off my chest.

Oh, and I felt the movie was mediocre at best. Even the great Helen Mirren couldn't save it.

The bad: Helen Mirren is miscast. Gotta see it for yourself that she is definitely not the right actress for this role, however good she might be, that is besides the point.

This movie starts out okayish, but gradually gets more stupid along the way. One of those movies I get fooled into thinking it must be worth SOMETHING based on the actors starring in it. BUT it is NOT.

This director has made really excellent movies in the past and future, but this unfortunately is a FLOP.

** out of ****

For those confused about the summary, let me explain. This is a high quality film. Only talented people could have possibly made this movie. It has good actors, a pretty neat plot, some really creative set design, and some very effective moments and lines. But it is a film filled with some much excess, so many inconsistencies, and so many moments of implausible character choices and results that the overall tone of the film suffers from it.

the film is basically about a stepmother son assassin lover team who get involved with one of their victim's lives. They change her identity and move her out of the country. she has a baby and they help her raise it. Meanwhile, her really sleazy husband is tearing up his associates trying to find her and do whatever he needs to do. Add to the mess an interracial couple who are his only other contact and connection with his wife. it's just a matter of time before they become rats.

Oh, and while all of this is happening, the stepmother(Helen Mirren) has cancer of some sort, their victim appears to fall in love with her son(Cuba Gooding Jr.), the victim's son seems to have some sort of assassin thing going on, and the son wants to quit the killing lifestyle because he doesn't want to hurt anymore parents, i guess. It's really quite creepy.

In all honesty, it's a disgusting film. the violence is way too gratuitous. I actually almost shut it off at the beginning during a scene where a man was about to be impaled through the rectum with a pool cue. I also found all the sex to be distracting more then ever. I never mind sexuality in movies and actually prefer it to violence, but in this, all the sex scenes are so joyless and so graphic, almost violent.

Aside from these, the major flaw in the film is the fact that, despite all the character development, there wasn't a single likable character in the whole film. It's good for a recent Cuba Gooding Jr. film, and there were a couple of good suspense scenes, but it's too uneven.

Rated R for strong graphic violence and sexuality, nudity, language and some drug use.

I can't believe I'm agreeing with the other review but Cuba's role did erase snow dogs from my memory. He was phenomenal.

Thats about the only nice thing I can say about this film. It has a number of problems and I suspect Mr. Daniels would not like to hear any of them, the two worst:

1. All shock and no substance. Sex and violence are fine, when they are part of the story. I'm sure Lee thinks they are part of the story, but the film would have been 1000 times better if it were a bit more subtle. This is a difficult point to grasp. I wasn't offended or anything, I just think it looks like he is using this as a crutch instead of art. It comes across as trying to hard to be edgy. It basically loses its impact.

2. Boring Story. So ridiculously predictable. Its really a shame given the great acting and interesting characters. Total fizzle at the end though.

3. Doesn't live up to its potential. Well cast, great acting, beautiful cinematography, but somehow all the pieces just don't fit.