Director: Mike Binder
Starring: Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler, Saffron Burrows, Cicely Tyson, Robert Klein, Melinda Dillon, Camille LaChe Smith, Mike Binder, Ted Raimi

- Reviewed by Vickie

I can already hear the detractors. “Adam Sandler? In a dark and heavy drama? Playing someone with psychological problems? Ha!” But, you know what? Even though this film is far from flawless, Sandler’s performance was, for me, powerful and touching. It worked. It was moving and tragic and pretty damn good. And it’s the main reason I’m giving this movie six slices.

Sandler stars as Charlie Fineman, a one-time dentist whose life has become a whirling vortex of heartbreak—so much so that he’s practically shut himself off from the world, existing in his own little universe where he sports headphones and listens to a LOT of rock music, plays video games and remodels the kitchen of his massive, though spare, apartment every couple of months. You see, Charlie’s wife and three daughters were killed in the 9/11 attacks and he’s retreated into his own mind to avoid dealing with his pain.

But a chance encounter with his former college roommate and fellow dentist, Alan (Don Cheadle), becomes a catalyst—albeit a very, very, very small and slow one—for change. A loner in every sense of the word, Charlie suddenly has a friend. Someone with whom to hang out, and someone who’s “safe” to be with because he won’t push Charlie about his late family. That level of their relationship works for a while, but Charlie’s erratic behavior and random outbursts of rage soon concern Alan, who takes it upon himself to help pull Charlie out of his emotional and psychological abyss.

Say what you will, but Sandler—looking a lot, intentionally or not, like Bob Dylan—disappears into his role. In the same way that Will Ferrell reined in his persona for Stranger Than Fiction, Sandler sets his trademark schtick aside and gets very, very small onscreen. His voice is timid, his mannerisms meek, and only when he explodes with anger do you glimpse, for a second, the Adam Sandler you’ve come to know. It’s obvious he committed to the part, and he delivers a somber and sobering performance.

Cheadle is just as good…though, as the “straight man” to Sandler’s comparatively more colorful character, he’s sort of subdued. And Jada Pinkett Smith turns in some nice, if stereotypically icy, work as Cheadle’s largely ignored wife, Janeane.

Where writer-director Mike Binder (The Upside of Anger) falters is with all the ambient “noise” of supplementary storylines. The core relationship between Charlie and Adam, and Charlie’s painful history, would be enough to sustain the film, but Binder throws all sorts of extraneous characters and plots into the mix—almost all of which prove needless and pointless. There’s Saffron Burrows as a lascivious (and ultimately troubled) patient of Alan’s; Melinda Dillon and Robert Klein as Charlie’s alternately concerned and unlikable in-laws; Liv Tyler as a therapist treating Charlie and, more indirectly, Alan; Binder himself as an accountant who may or may not be on the level; and Donald Sutherland in a fitting cameo as a judge with gravitas and grace. All of these things, and several others, are like irritating roadblocks along the film’s narrative path: none enhance the action and Burrows’ character is especially irrelevant and contrived.

Reign Over Me is a buddy drama along the lines of phonetically similar Rainman, where you’ve got one guy who’s okay on the surface (but with troubles of his own) and one guy who’s not (though okay in his own way). It’s a yin and yang pairing, brought about by a need for help, that—stop me if you’ve heard this one before—winds up benefiting both parties equally. Yes, it’s a cliché and, yes, there are more than a few groaner moments (or characters) throughout the proceedings, but the film worked for me overall.

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