The Family Man

Reviewed by: Suad Bejtovic, Bosnian Movie Critic

Directed by: Brett Ratner

Starring: Nicholas Cage, Tea Leoni, Don Cheadle

.Kad se pravi film sa vise od nula posto romantike, cesto je igra na srecu da li ce glumci razviti bilo kakvu hemiju. Jos ako film ima namjeru da bude vesela praznicna romanticna komedija, ta hemija postaje kriticna. Ponekad su i najbolji glumci nemocni protiv losih zamisli (Sean Connery - Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Douglas - Gwyneth Paltrow), ali ponekad se te stvari i potrefe. Family Man sastavlja Nicholasa Cagea i Teu Leoni, i oni odmah izgledaju odlicno zajedno, a razlika u njihovim honorarima ne narusava ravnotezu u snazi njihovih izvedbi.

Kad smo kod snage i moci, Jack Campbell (Cage) ih ima na pretek. On ne samo da pliva sa ajkulama Wall streeta, on je jedna od njih, Velika Bijela, dapace. On vozi Ferrari, radi prekovremeno na Badnjak, kupuje svaku kompaniju koju zeli, pa i zensko drustvo. Samac je, jer je ostavio svoju djevojku da bi otisao u Englesku prije deset godina. Slucajni susret sa misterioznim pljackasem (Don Cheadle), pokrenuce Jackov "flash back", veliku sekvencu "Sta bi bilo da je bilo".

U ovoj verziji, on se vraca iz Engleske narednog dana, gonjen slikom svoje uplakane djevojke Kate (Leoni) kako ga moli da ostane, zavrsavajuci molbu sa "Ja biram nas". Budi se na Bozic, ozenjen sa Kate, sa dvoje slatkih klinaca koji se motaju oko kuce u predgradju New Jerseya. Ne vozi vise Ferrari, nego mini-kombi. Ne radi vise na Wall Streetu, nego kao prodavac automobilskih guma. No, ima obitelj, i to moze biti i pocetak i kraj njegove potrage za vlastitim identitetom.

Pjesma Talking Headsa "Once In A Lifetime" savrseno objasnjava njegovu situaciju, iako se pojavljuje samo u forspanima, a ne i u samom filmu: "ovo nije moja prelijepa kuca, ovo nije moja prelijepa zena..." Jack ce cak i reci rijeci "Ovo cak nije ni moja kuca", ali Kate samo odmahne rukom, a mi kasnije saznajemo da se Novi Jack zapravo voli da se tako sali. Pocetna zbunjenost kroz koju Jack prolazi izmamljuje mnogo smijeha, od njegovih roditeljskih duznosti do monotonog posla. Jack ce raspaliti mnoge svoje stare plamenove, ali kako ga je misteriozni pljackas napomenuo, ovo je samo pogled. A pogledi ne traju do kraja filma.

I tu lezi problem "Family Man". Cak i sa svojim ogranicenim vremenom, Leoni krade centralni dio filma od Cagea svojim razoruzavajucim osmijesima i svojom prostom licnoscu. Njih dvoje razvijaju odlicnu vezu i razdraganu atmosferu. No, kada se "pogled" zavrsi, i Cage se ponovo probudi posve sam u svom stanu na Manhattanu, film se zaustavi u mjestu. Film takodjer izostavlja nekoliko koraka iz Cageove transformacije iz hladnokrvnog nezenje u posvecenog muza i oca. Kroz cijeli "pogled", on se jos uvijek ponasa kao stranac u svome vlastitom zivotu. Flertuje sa ljepuskasom komsinicom kojoj se dopada, zaboravljajuci sve porodicne vrijednosti koje treba da nauci. Stoga se konacno rjesenje cini usiljenim i prkosi vecini logike, izdajuci zabavu filma jeftinim romantiziranjem. S boljim zavrsetkom, "Family Man" je imao priliku da bude praznicni film koji ce se zadrzati u nasoj okolini, poput "It's a Wonderful Life", sa Jimmy Stewartom. Ovako, to je samo jos jedna romanticna komedija, iako su glavni glumci razvili pregrst hemije.

When making any movie with a higher than zero amount of romance, more often than not it’s a crapshoot whether the actors involved will have any chemistry. If the movie wants to be a feel-good holiday romantic comedy, that chemistry becomes critical. Sometimes even the best actors can’t do much about bad mismatches (Sean Connery – Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Douglas – Gwyneth Paltrow) but sometimes you strike gold. Family Man puts together Nicholas Cage and Tea Leoni, and they click instantly and the imbalance in payroll doesn’t affect the balance of on-screen power.

Speaking of power, Jack Campbell (Cage) has more of it than he knows what to do with. He’s not only swimming with Wall Street sharks, he is one, of the Great White variety. He drives a Ferrari, he works overtime on Christmas Eve, and he buys any company he wants, including the female one. He’s single, because he left his girlfriend to go to England ten years ago. A chance encounter with a mysterious convenience store robber (Don Cheadle) will trigger a flashback for Jack, one big long "what if" sequence.

This time he’ll return from England the next day, haunted by the image of his girlfriend Kate’s (Leoni) tears and her emotional plea for him to stay, ending with "I choose us". He wakes up on Christmas Day, already married to Kate, with two sweet kids running around a suburban New Jersey house. He no longer has a Ferrari, he drives a minivan. He doesn’t work on Wall Street, he’s a tire salesman. But, he has a family, and that may be the beginning and the end of his search for identity.

The song "Once In A Lifetime" by Talking Heads perfectly explains his situation, even though it appears only in the trailers, not in the movie; "this is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife…" Jack will actually say the words "This is not even my house" to Kate, but she just scoffs and waves her hand, and we’ll find later that the New Jack actually likes to make jokes like that. The initial confusion that Jack goes through brings out many laughs, from his parenting duties to his less-than-exciting job. Jack rekindles many an old flame, but as the mysterious convenience store robber reminded him, this is just a glimpse. And glimpses don’t last until the end of the movie.

And that’s where the problem of Family Man lies. Even with her limited screen time, Leoni stole the center portion of the movie from Cage with her disarming smiles and her down-to-earth personality. The two develop a great chemistry and a joyful atmosphere. But when the glimpse ends, and Cage wakes up all alone again in his Manhattan penthouse, the movie stops dead in its track. The movie also leaves out a few steps in Cage’s transformation from a cold-blooded bachelor into a dedicated husband and father. Throughout "the glimpse", he still behaves as if he’s just a stranger in his own life. He hits on a pretty neighbor who has a crush on him and he still claws his way back to the top of the Wall Street heap, forgetting all the family values he’s supposed to learn. That’s why the final resolution seems forced and defies most of the logic, betraying the fun of the movie with cheap romanticizing. With a better ending, Family Man had a chance to be a holiday movie that sticks around along the lines of It’s a Wonderful Life. This way, it’s just another romantic comedy, even though the main actors developed a lot of chemistry.

Buy a poster of this movie! Click on the banner below!