How to Cope With Grief : A Review of Collateral Beauty

So this movie just recently came out and I thought it might be good.  I admire movies that are less fluff and tackle deep life issues.  Collateral Beauty looked like it was just the ticket.  After it arrived, I sat down to view it and see if Will Smith came through again in a moving performance.  First of all,  I will say it is VERY well acted.  They have many big names working in this movie which means the quality of work is not to be questioned.
Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Will Smith to name a few (as mentioned earlier).

Basically the story is about Will Smith who plays a grieving dad who lost his 6 year old daughter.  He basically stops performing at his job and starts doing domino creations and then watches them all crumble.  This is one of those movies where pink slips are non-existent and jobs allow their employees and/or co-founders to do whatever they desire while they process their life changes.  Makes a great movie,  but I seriously question how realistic it is in the real world.  Anyway, Will's co-workers want him to process it and be productive so they hire a crew of 3 actors which are paid to portray the three themes of Will's life:  Time, Love, and Death.  These actors take on the challenge and try to work through the difficulties with Will Smith's character to the point of helping him grieve, as well as helping him to snap back into reality.   Here is what I liked about Collateral Beauty:

1. Great attempt at processing the grief of loss of a loved one.  I admire their desire to make this movie deeper than average, yet I still felt it left something to be desired.

2. Great acting and well-done writing for the script.  The cast for this movie was very well put together and it was executed well.  The writing went a level deeper than most movies, but didn't go as deep as possible.

3. Nice twists and turn to leave the ending well put together.   I don't want to give anything away but this movie offered twists and turns as it played out and wasn't just a standard movie with very predictable paths.  That definitely helped my overall rating.

Now that I have listed the positives, I will summarize what I didn't like about it:

Negative 1:  No mention of the afterlife.   The whole movie didn't even TOUCH the subject of whether there is life after death - even though the Bible clearly teaches that.   Eternity is a long time and all of us will have to answer to God and His Son Jesus for the way we used our life on Earth and how we chose to believe or doubt the claims of Christ.

Negative 2: Too short to be adequately invested in the main character - I like Will Smith and his acting, but at the end of the movie I didn't feel like I was emotionally invested in his character as much as I was in the movie 7 Pounds.   This could be because there was so much acting talent, it was hard to follow one character exclusively, or it could have been due to the writing.  I'm not sure.  I just know it was well done, but didn't quite rise to the level of 4 stars due to the number of stories, actors/actresses and the writing.

Negative 3: No mention of truth being an absolute or a Person.   Typical Hollywood.  They want you to feel good, but don't want to make anyone believe they need to make changes (unless it is to become more liberal in their thinking).  Truth is absolute.  Truth is a Person and His name is Jesus Christ (John 14:6).  Without believing this,  your life will just fall apart when you don't understand why things happened when they did.   Check out the Bible.  Truth can bring comfort  and God will never let you down.

So to summarize : I enjoyed watching this movie - but I thought it could be done better.  I would give it a solid 3.5 stars out of 5.

Concussion Review

Will Smith has taken on a very thought-provoking role in the movie I just watched : Concussion.   I must admit I was a little surprised to see his role in this movie.  I had envisioned Will Smith would be one of the football players who ends up injured by concussions in the NFL.   That turned out to be quite different than how the story goes.  Instead, Will Smith plays a doctor named Dr. Bennet Omalu who has a passion for investigating why people die.  As a forensic scientist he has to examine dead bodies and many times has to testify to cause of death.  Things get interesting when certain NFL legends in the town of Pittsburgh, PA end up going crazy and having strange deaths that are not in line with their overall health.  Dr. Omalu does some research on his own and finds some serious causes to the death.  The problems start when he tries to share his discoveries.

Let me be clear:  This movies is not a great feel-good story.  It is based on a true story which makes it very interesting.  The observations and discoveries of Dr. Omalu also give you a whole new perspective on the NFL and even watching NFL games.   It makes you think twice.  It makes you realize that NFL players are jeopardizing their health and mental well-being by being successful in the sport.  In the end, it makes a very strong statement about America's love for football.  It just may not be the statement you were hoping for.

Will Smith does a great job in his role and I think he plays his part very convincingly.   Although I wouldn't want to re-watch this movie,  I did feel it made fascinating observations about football and the NFL and it made you think about this sport in a new perspective.   For that it gets bonus points in my book since it doesn't leave hot topics untouched.   I give this movie a solid 4 stars out of 5.   Although I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy the Superbowl quite as much after watching this movie.