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As Good As It Gets

Absolutely Fantastic

The acting in this movie is really good.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Prior to watching this film I had taken a class that spent about a month or so looking in-depth into the case of The West Memphis Three very heavily and even getting the opportunity to meet with Dan Stidham, Jessie Misskelly's defense attorney. So watching the film for the first time I was pretty critical to see how the characters would be portrayed and perhaps hint at specifically that Terry Hobbs had in fact been the real murderer. I was quite pleasantly surprised that the movie took a rather objective stand about the suspected murderer besides the three West Memphis teens, Damien, Jason, and Jessie. The movie presented the other theories that have surfaced; including as mentioned before, Terry Hobbs, John Mark Byers, and the mysterious "Mr. Bojangles". I appreciated those view points and really gave the viewer the chance to create their own theory. I thought the facts in the film were almost entirely accurate and had a few misconstrued details, but where won't one find that in a movie 'based' on real-life events. One of the things that I enjoyed thoroughly about the film was the credit and presence on Ron Lax in the trials of the three teens. In the film he took on the role of most likely the lead male character which I did not expect. When reading and researching the case by itself Lax does not really play a large part in the trials of the three teens. I felt as if this film gave Lax the credit he deserved as well as Stidham's dedication to the three teens when the two other attorneys dropped off after the sentence. Another character that I felt got a little lost in the film was Micheal Moore along with Chris Byers. All in all I felt like the film gave an accurate representation of facts and visual images to the story. However, the documentaries would hold more fact filled information if one desires more information about the West Memphis Three.

Well, I seem to be at odds with the critics (not surprising) and the viewers of this movie. I knew virtually nothing about the case of the "West Memphis 3" before seeing the movie - and maybe that was an advantage for me.I found the story compelling - the acting very convincing - and the sense of unease in relation to the story upsetting. This true story occurred in 1993 in West Memphis, Arkansas and (evidently) garnered national attention at that time (I must have been asleep). It tells the story of the grisly murder of three young boys and the subsequent "witch hunt" to find their killers. This story demonstrates what can happen when people in a community are scared, the heat is on the police, and everyone just wants to get through it. You guessed it - not a good set up for justice. And, early on it is clear that justice will not be done in this case.Interesting that the South seems to have a reputation for shocking travesties of justice (remember George Zimmerman?) yet these things happen throughout our nation (OJ in LA and recently the non indictment in the NY police strangulation case). Where ever you land on these current cases, this movie does an excellent job of laying out the case against the police (unforgivable) and the town (understandable) in this case.Both Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon give good performances and I loved the cameo by Mireille Enos (one of my favorites - from The Killing.)Well you can believe the critics or me. I really liked it and learned from this film. I think you will too.BTW: check out the top 10 IMDb movies of the year:http://www.imdb.com/best-of/imdb-countdown?ref_=hm_hp_i_1It is clear that I cannot cancel my Netfilx membership for a while. I have only seen 3 of the top 10!!! All the best DonB

Review: It's really frustrating when you watch a movie and you don't know what really happened. Especially when it's a true story and the ending is explained by captions. Anyway, I thought this was an intense court room drama about the death of 3 young boys during the 90s in Memphis. The storyline shows you how the case against 2 teenagers, who were accused of the murder, took place, but there were so many holes in the evidence. The movie did seem to move at a slow pace, but you can't help feeling emotional whilst watching what took place in the woods. The judge must have been a complete idiot, not to realise that there was something wrong with the case and that the missing evidence wasn't a bit strange. Personally I think that the police and the judge, just wanted the case closed because of the pressure from the media and the residents in that town, but I'm not familiar with the case so I don't know how much in the movie is really true. Anyway, the performances were great, even though Colin Firth seemed to be drifting from scene to scene, and the storyline was well put together by the director. Watchable!Round-Up: Why are these type of movies always based in the deep south and full of lies and corruption? Anyway, I had to put on my detective hat during this movie so I could piece all of the evidence together and come up with my own verdict, but I failed miserably. There are so many holes in everyone's story, which makes it hard to piece all of the evidence together. For entertainment, you can't help getting into the dramatic court scenes and you end up sticking with the movie, just to see the outcome, but you don't get to know the depth of the characters so you end up concentrating on the verdict, more than feeling for the families. On the down side, I do feel a bit cheated because of the ending, but my heart does go out to the real families who don't know what really happened.Budget: $15million Worldwide Gross: N/AI recommend this movie to people who are into there emotional court dramas about the death of three young kids in Memphis during the 90's. 5/10

As other reviewers have already stated the documentaries are wonderfully done. They followed the complete history of this bizarre case and are well worth a watch. Besides the first three, Peter Jackson has also done one quite recently.Atom Egoyan films are always interesting - until now. I felt I was watching a made for TV film (before the days of our premium cable shows). This had an outstanding cast. In an effort for realism all of the big stars looked like us normal frumpy people with bad hairstyles - except for Colin Firth - he stands out like a (gorgeous) sore thumb. Couldn't understand why he was allowed to look like a movie star and for me it did effect the "everyday man, retro period" look I felt Mr. Egoyan was going for. The cast is all excellent but the editing, action and dialogue doesn't give them much to do.As previous reviewers pointed out, one problem lies in condensing this complex troubling story into a couple hours. Usually a short textual summary at end of film gives you info on what happens to main characters after film ends. This summary covers decades and doesn't do justice to the bulk of what happened. The story is so hard hitting because it took decades to resolve. Perhaps the director wanted to focus on the piece he did but it almost felt like - OK, here we are two hours - let's wrap it up and write up the rest. He is such a strong filmmaker that I am sure I missed the point of why he did this film the way he did of such a well documented case.And, finally the larger problem is simply that - this film is sluggish. It isn't just really really slow pacing. It drags. It trips. It feels like it really wants to lay down for a nap. Perhaps those who don't know the story were fascinated but for me the whole movie is dull, which is astonishing given its subject matter. For instance, so many times the camera pans to Reese Witherspoon and just hangs there on the same sad look she wears each time this happens. Or, she and Colin Firth exchange long meaningful glances over and over until far into the film. Little action, little interesting dialogue, not much cohesive dialogue at all. I felt all these terrific actors were given nothing to do. Even Colin Firth has a surprisingly small passive part in the film given his character's relevance to the story.Just cannot recommend this. Definitely see the documentaries instead and then re-watch The Sweet Hereafter!