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James Bond as a reclusive writer? No, it can't be! But it is. The aging Bond, Sean Connery (Entrapment), is back as William Forrester in the Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting) film, Finding Forrester. Connery plays opposite newcomer Robert Brown whose character Jamal Wallace who has a bright young mind, but needs assistance developing it. He is also a star basketball player at his high school in the Bronx. One day Jamal breaks into Forrester's apartment on a dare from his friends. Forrester sneaks up and scares Jamal off, but Jamal forgets his book bag that contains his personal journal. Jamal is a bit frazzled by the situation, but Forrester is intrigued by the writings of the youth. Soon Forrester and Jamal strike up a friendship that revolves around writing. Also during this time Jamal transfers to a mostly white prep school in Manhattan to play basketball, as well as to learn. It is at this point that Jamal learns that Forrester wrote the great American novel of the 20th Century and then never wrote another book (ala JD Salinger). He also learns from Forrester that his English professor, Robert Crawford (F. Murray Abraham, Star Trek: Insurrection), is a real jackass. You see the professor is a bit skeptical of the Black kid from the ghetto being able to write so splendidly and starts to think he is plagiarizing. Meanwhile Jamal is making new friends, like the beautiful Claire Spence (Anna Paquin, X-Men) while becoming more distant with his friends from the neighborhood. Oooooh, conflict! The rest of the cast includes rapper Busta Rhymes, Michael Pitt, Richard Easton, Stephanie Berry, Fly Williams III, and many other 'character' actors (as they like to be called). Anyway, Connery and Brown perform beautifully in their respective roles as we the audience learn about each of their lives (oooooh, character development). The director, Van Sant, does a great job of pulling everything in the picture together to make Finding Forrester a great film. Van Sant was helped a lot by the screenplay of Mike Rich. In conclusion, and therefore, all of these items add up to nine couches in my book. My only issue would be that we should have learned more about Jamal's family (mainly his mother). Like in so many films lately, there was no nudity in this film (Anna Paquin nude would have been great, but I suppose that it would have taken away from the rest of the movie). Thanks for reading and goodbye. Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:49:44 AM |
