A Duel Between Two Men.
By Yahoo! Movie User on
Sat, Dec 12, 2009 5:09 PM EST
This movie -from the very first time I saw it- really made an impression on me.
It hits you like a sledgehammer, something very few movies are able to do, and from very first moment on, you're wondering how two people who, in some way or another are just sleepwalking through their lives, can unravel over things that seem so trivial.
It SOUNDS hard to believe, and yet when you stop and think about it, what are most crimes of passion commited over?
Not big things like intetionally crashing someone's car or selling your wife's ruby bracelet to buy booze...
It's usually something little (or what we consider to be little), like accidentally putting cream and sugar in someone's coffee when they've told you twenty times that they drink it black... Like showing up five or ten minutes late for an appointment with someone who hates to sit around and wait...Or eating in a way that your spouse can't stand the sight of.
These are the things people fight (and kill) over when it's all said done...Trivial things which could be solved with a phone call or an apology, or the simplest modification of a routine or a habit but which usually blow up because of our inability to get passed our frustration (frustration -mind you- that's sitting on top of a lot of other stuff, mostly repressed anger).
Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) is a successful Wall Street lawyer who has recently been made partner at his father-in-law's law firm.
When the movie opens Gavin is giving a eulogy at a Child Charity Concert founded by his former client Simon Dunne, an obscenely rich philatropist who's grand-daughter Mina is now sueing Gavin and his law-firm for reasons that elude him, and which his father-in-law (played by a terrific Sydney Pollack) knows about but doesn't want to reveal.
Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson) is a divorced, recovering alcoholic, who desperately wants joint custody of his two small boys, and with this in mind, has bought his wife a house in order to persuade her to not move with them to Oregon.
As the two men are rushing to their respective courts (Doyle for his divorce hearing, Banek for the law-suit), their cars collide on the FDR, and what happens is only too typrical of people who are rattled and off-balance.
Banek dashes off some information on a sheet of paper, then takes off leaving Doyle on the highway begging for a ride.
"Sorry man." Banek says "Better luck next time."
And over the course of what turns out to be the worst day of their lives, Banek will deeply regret having said those words.
When Doyle Gipson arrives in court twenty minutes late, he finds that the hearing is over, and that the court has given sole custody to his wife Valerie (Kim Staunton).
Banek, meanwhile, is right on the verge of winning the law-suit by a land slide, when -as he reaches into his briefcase for the most important file in the case- he finds he has left it at the scene having used it to write down his information...
It is now in the possesion of Doyle Gipson, who is furious for having been left stranded,and is not amenable to helping the man whose refusal to offer a ride cost Doyle his two sons.
Banek, after lying to his bosses about winning the suit, explains to his former lover and colleague Michelle (Toni Collette) that the court has given him until the end of the day to produce that file without which he will probably end up going to prison.
Michelle then suggests an alternate solution (being polite to Doyle having proved ineffectual) which sets off a series of devastating events, and in the end really wakes both men up.
It is the incredibly good ending which makes this movie worth watching, and a masterwork in my opinion.
The first time you watch it is difficult, because you're constantly expecting something irreversably horrible to happen... It is only when you get to the end that you can breathe a sigh of relief (as I did) and really recognize what this movie is all about.
It's a story that transcends race,religion, economical standing, and explores what happens when two men who are in a diffucult time in their lives decide to duel, instead of just make peace...and the self awareness that can come out of that.
It hits you like a sledgehammer, something very few movies are able to do, and from very first moment on, you're wondering how two people who, in some way or another are just sleepwalking through their lives, can unravel over things that seem so trivial.
It SOUNDS hard to believe, and yet when you stop and think about it, what are most crimes of passion commited over?
Not big things like intetionally crashing someone's car or selling your wife's ruby bracelet to buy booze...
It's usually something little (or what we consider to be little), like accidentally putting cream and sugar in someone's coffee when they've told you twenty times that they drink it black... Like showing up five or ten minutes late for an appointment with someone who hates to sit around and wait...Or eating in a way that your spouse can't stand the sight of.
These are the things people fight (and kill) over when it's all said done...Trivial things which could be solved with a phone call or an apology, or the simplest modification of a routine or a habit but which usually blow up because of our inability to get passed our frustration (frustration -mind you- that's sitting on top of a lot of other stuff, mostly repressed anger).
Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) is a successful Wall Street lawyer who has recently been made partner at his father-in-law's law firm.
When the movie opens Gavin is giving a eulogy at a Child Charity Concert founded by his former client Simon Dunne, an obscenely rich philatropist who's grand-daughter Mina is now sueing Gavin and his law-firm for reasons that elude him, and which his father-in-law (played by a terrific Sydney Pollack) knows about but doesn't want to reveal.
Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson) is a divorced, recovering alcoholic, who desperately wants joint custody of his two small boys, and with this in mind, has bought his wife a house in order to persuade her to not move with them to Oregon.
As the two men are rushing to their respective courts (Doyle for his divorce hearing, Banek for the law-suit), their cars collide on the FDR, and what happens is only too typrical of people who are rattled and off-balance.
Banek dashes off some information on a sheet of paper, then takes off leaving Doyle on the highway begging for a ride.
"Sorry man." Banek says "Better luck next time."
And over the course of what turns out to be the worst day of their lives, Banek will deeply regret having said those words.
When Doyle Gipson arrives in court twenty minutes late, he finds that the hearing is over, and that the court has given sole custody to his wife Valerie (Kim Staunton).
Banek, meanwhile, is right on the verge of winning the law-suit by a land slide, when -as he reaches into his briefcase for the most important file in the case- he finds he has left it at the scene having used it to write down his information...
It is now in the possesion of Doyle Gipson, who is furious for having been left stranded,and is not amenable to helping the man whose refusal to offer a ride cost Doyle his two sons.
Banek, after lying to his bosses about winning the suit, explains to his former lover and colleague Michelle (Toni Collette) that the court has given him until the end of the day to produce that file without which he will probably end up going to prison.
Michelle then suggests an alternate solution (being polite to Doyle having proved ineffectual) which sets off a series of devastating events, and in the end really wakes both men up.
It is the incredibly good ending which makes this movie worth watching, and a masterwork in my opinion.
The first time you watch it is difficult, because you're constantly expecting something irreversably horrible to happen... It is only when you get to the end that you can breathe a sigh of relief (as I did) and really recognize what this movie is all about.
It's a story that transcends race,religion, economical standing, and explores what happens when two men who are in a diffucult time in their lives decide to duel, instead of just make peace...and the self awareness that can come out of that.
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