The Reel Critic Reign over Me

Author: Josh Wessler

"Reign over Me" has Adam Sandler looking disheveled, with hair flowing over dark, deep-set eyes. An alcoholic's drawl lurks behind a thick New York accent. He appears like a rebellious adolescent though it's his most mature role to date. The film mixes the sad and funny into a story about lost friendship and kinship, and about how forgetting can make that loss easier. Sandler, playing a disillusioned man named Charlie Fineman, is outstanding in an otherwise mediocre movie. The film is worth seeing even if it's only for a few key performances, not the least from Paula Newsome as a sarcastic receptionist. It is also worthwhile as a post-9/11 elegy, taking a different look at the cultural fallout from the disaster.

Charlie is a hard-core rocker (he plays drums) and a hard-core gamer, both of which he pursues to the exclusion of anything resembling responsibility or maturity. Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) is a hard-working dentist who has a profitable practice and a supportive family. The unlikely duo were once roommates in dental school, but when they run into each other on the street one night in New York City, Charlie has no recollection of their previous relationship. Devastated by the loss of his wife and kids on Sept. 11, 2001, Charlie has been living as a recluse on insurance money. His toys help to dull the sensation of loss and tragedy. Intrigued by the trauma Charlie suffered, Alan decides to try and rekindle Charlie's memories.

Relying on a limited number of situations demonstrating Charlie's depressed state, writer-director Mike Binder repeats them to emphasize their importance. One such situation takes place early in the duo's re-established friendship, when Alan asks if Charlie still practices dentistry. Charlie responds in the affirmative, and demonstrates how skilled he has become at the "Shadows of the Colossus" video game. Binder's over-reliance on montages becomes tiring and the plot drags towards the middle of the movie. Binder aims for the type of mystique captured brilliantly in Roman Polanksi's "Chinatown," but Charlie's occasional paranoia seems contrived. Other than the initial diagnosis of trauma and depression, Binder gives Sandler little to work with. Binder attempts to work with a range of textures, playing with light, color and sharpness, but unfortunately, his dialogue gets in the way. One particularly painful scene between Alan and his wife, Janeane (Jada Pinkett Smith), in which they discuss a photography class, is completely superfluous to the story and the dialogue comes off sounding like amateur copy. Yet, Binder most enjoys the moments without dialogue, letting Charlie ride uninhibited through the New York streets. His cityscape is as lonely as the one David Fincher evoked in "Panic Room."

Faced with Charlie's Holdenesque naivetÈ, Alan realizes his own life's stagnation, but finally comes to terms with the stability of adulthood. Charlie, on the other hand, does not. Is Charlie the face of our generation - apathetic and amnesiac? Charlie would rather drown out the memory of Sept. 11 with the din of video games and loud rock music than face the pain of reality. As the children of the boomers, we question our lack of urgency and recklessness in the face of new world conflicts. Are we really so easily pacified with surround sound and a plasma T.V.? The film seems to long for the turmoil that could have resulted from the World Trade Center attacks - social uprisings always make for great art. Instead, as a generation, we are stuck like Charlie; we find no easy answers to the questions lingering after that fateful day in 2001.