The Blind Side
Director: John Lee Hancock (The Alamo and The Rookie)
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron and Kathy Bates
MPAA - Rated PG-13 for one scene involving brief violence, drug and sexual references.
A near perfect film, “The Blind Side” is a wonderful true story that had my wife choking up about every five minutes. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and thought how great it was to see a film with so much heart and not much that could be considered offensive. We felt like we were watching one of those Christian movies except this one had a plot, acting, and decent dialogue.
Sandra Bullock was fantastic. She was so different compared to the many romantic comedy roles she has previously been in. I have always loved her movies, though this new one, “All about Steve,” looks like a serious looser, but in general she is great. I have never really seen her stretch much in a role, but in this one she was really good. I am not saying she was so good that she beat out Merrill Streep in “Julia and Julia”, no one’s performance last year matched Streep’s Julia Child, but Bullock was really good. She was the sassy, sexy, and very confident Leigh Anne Tuohy; a woman who steps out of her comfort zone and breaks social norms by befriending a homeless black teenager (Quinton Aaron’s Michael Oher) and makes him part of the family.
The unfortunate part to Bullock’s superb acting was that she dwarfed everyone on screen the way Oher does on the football field. She was almost too good for the rest of the cast. The only one who was nearly as good as her was Jae Head playing the nine-year-old son. He was actually very good, reminiscent of “Squints”, from the classic tale of baseball and boyhood “The Sandlot”. This was an excellent role for the mouthy little kid; full of information and funny as heck.
Quinton Aaron was okay. His towering physique mad him perfect for the role of NFL star Michael Oher, but he is not yet as developed an actor, someone a little more experienced may have been better for the role, but maybe not. He was still a loveable giant, looking for acceptance and respect like all teenagers. Aaron held his own, and pulled the part off.
Earlier I said “The Blind Side” was a near perfect film, and it was. I’d give it a good 8.7 out of 10, but I felt like something was missing to really push the movie to be extraordinary. We have a lot of football movies littering the screen, some are good, some garbage, but one stands supreme in the realm of sports movies, “Remember the Titans.” A movie so good that it’s equal will have to pack some pretty amazing stuff into it to get there, and “The Blind Side” fell a bit short.
It succeeded in being a warm movie about family and love, and built loveable characters in situations that could just break someone’s heart, but it hit the same roadblocks as Clint Eastwood’s “Invictus.” The film climaxed a bit and there was a point of emotional stress for the characters, but it was not passed on to the audience very well. We all felt bad but we didn’t get that gut churning emotional roller coaster that we experienced with “Remember the Titans”. That was the only drawback to the film; it was just not quite intense enough.
But on a whole it is a film to remember. What the director has sculpted is a feel good film about families and good Christian ethics. Like “The Rookie” and many other sports movies, “The Blind Side” is a winner and one you won’t regret seeing.
Sex/Nudity – 3 out of 10 – There is some sexual dialogue among teenagers and gang bangers. A man and a woman lie in bed together and the man rolls on top of the woman and kisses her, you could infer they are going to have sex but the scene ends. A woman shows cleavage in a lot of scenes.
Violence/Gore – 5 out of 10 – There is a fight in one scene where young men are tossed around a room, some punching and a gun goes off. A lot of furniture is broken and a crib is knocked over, a baby starts crying. There are some hard hits in football practices and games. References to boys dying in gang fights and other gang violence is mentioned. There is nothing gory or distasteful for anyone over the age of 10 or so.
Profanity – The “B” word is used a few times, the “N” word as well, and a few religious exclamations. Some sexual dialogue and name calling.
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