Good Fences

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.

I enjoyed this movie quite a lot. I have always been a fan of Whoopi Goldberg and this movie only emphasizes it. She portrays a housewife in an African-American family which is moving up the social chain due to the husband's (Danny Glover) success as an attorney. She moves to an all white neighborhood where the people are friendly, yet a little awkward toward her. The various events that arise during the course of the movie make for SOME laughs but mostly appeal to the other emotions. This movie is not so much a comedy as a drama. I give it a strong 8/10. I highly recommend you catch it on TV or rent it soon.

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."

A moderately decent movie, one that takes a lot of attention to get the full gist of the story since it goes back and forth in flashbacks, few of which really add to the film..

Definitely plays like a vanity film for Glover and Goldberg. Contains some interesting commentary on racial attitudes and the fluidity of racial identity.

Biggest drawback is that several different threads are grafted together (pardon the mixed metaphor) without adding to the story. Is this a story about the generation gap? Racism? Class identity? So difficult to tell.