Manhood

This thing is all over the place. Bobby Roth wrote and directed and clearly had too much on his plate.

The late John Ritter, in one of his last movies, showed a maturity of talent, with swerves and layers to his performance. Perhaps most disturbing to watch, particularly in the daylight scenes, was the light purple hue that had worked its way into his complexion. This, more so than the weight gain of middle age, was a visual sign of the pending cardiac trouble that eventually claimed his life. Still, he played the pathetic cad with out the over acting and indicating that hampered much of his earlier work. It showed a sign of growth, sadly. That, coupled with the flimsy material he was working with was even more commendable.

Janeanne Garofallo, when not tanking her career by spouting off about things political, seems hell bent on uglying herself up when she is an attractive, charismatic woman, albeit a very diminutive one. Still, she does her best to appear as bitchy, and dispassionate as possible. When a character is completely unlikeable, audiences tend not to care about her at all-like in this work. I'm thinking she took the job for a new in-ground pool.

Finally, there's the talented, handsome, Nestor Carbonell, who was the lead and constrained with the wealth of expository dialogue that crammed the scenes between character affectations. Nestor, who should get better parts, was wasted here. The guy is a stud. I wonder if the geniuses who cast films see him as "too ethnic." That his character managed to put the brakes on his sex addiction and became the good guy was completely unbelievable.

Why do I waste my time? Please learn from my mistake, and give this one a pass.

I agree with everyone else, this movie was not a comedy; not even a black comedy. Maybe if it was categorized as a DRAMA, it may have got better reviews or any reviews at all. But the movie wasn't all that bad, I'll admit that the acting wasn't to great, but for what the had to do it was alright. Maybe its the director telling them what to do and they have to act to the best of their ability. Some of the casting choices weren't the best choices. John Ritter as the bad guy just didn't seem to fit. And the the movie info describing the actor playing Jack as a former "womanizer", I didn't see that at all. But the choices for Andrew J. Ferchland as Sam and Nick Roth for Charlie were great. Andrew looks like that small kid, not popular but not unpopular, always having to get straight A's for his parents, and he would look up to someone older who is the complete opposite of him. That opposite person is Charlie, not that great of an actor but got the slacker walk and attitude down perfect. He reminds me of my friend Ed, totally slacker and totally hot.

Good movie. I enjoyed the story and felt it flowed very well. However, I have a few questions. What is with the mothers? First we see the main character's sister drop off her son at his house indefinitely because she needs a "break". Later the main character's wife says she doesn't want custody of their son? What kind of mother would just leave their kid because they're tired of parenting, and what kind of mother doesn't want custody of her son?

I had some issues with a few of the framing choices throughout the movie. During the therapy session scenes, the shots are not centered on the characters. At first I thought they were trying to show something else in the background, but as I watched, there was nothing of value being shown in the background. Please just center the shots. It takes the attention off the plot and just leaves viewers wondering why the characters are not centered in the shot.

Other than that, the movie was good (not great). It's a solid watch if you're running out of other movie ideas.