Good Fences

There is a lot of undertone and subtle humor that not everyone will pick up in this movie. I found it highly intriguing and I could not help to compare my current situation to theirs, as I am moving to an even less diverse all white neighborhood tomorrow. It helped to be reminded that we shouldn't lose our own identities within the environments we live in. It think ABCs "Blackish" tackles this issue much more humorously. The issue with the patriarch in this movie is that he has internalized racism, which is something that is not talked about enough and is becoming widespread.

Given the two big stars,this was a monumental disappointment. Predictable, stale, and full of cliches Boring!

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.

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.

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."