The Blind Side

Blind Side a.k.a The White Man’s Burden

I normally review movies when they first hit theaters, but this movie is special, and I feel that I must present my message on this film.

The Blind Side is a total failure in terms of quality and a great success in terms of effectiveness and the only thing that matters, the box office. The fact of the matter though, is that this “film” is a tame, family-friendly, white-friendly, and completely fake film. (Like Hillary Clinton’s smile.) The story could not be more bright and innocent if they replaced all the actors with cartoon woodland critters. Sandra Bullock uses a southern accent as annoying as Keanu Reeves accent in…anything. And finally the writing is constructed of nothing my catchphrases and one-liners. (It’s like hearing Link say “Excuuuuuuse me, Princess.” Over and over again for two hours.)

First thing is first. This movie was nominated for best picture. Not really much I can say about that. The academy is stupid. Let’s move on. Oh wait, Sandra Bullock won for best actress. How do you get away with that? That has to be a crime. She didn’t just win the Oscar either. She won the Critic’s Choice Award as well as the People’s Choice Award as well as a Golden globe and SAG award. How the hell does that happen?

1) Sandra Bullock plays the bitchyest protagonist ever as Anne Tuohy. Main characters are supposed to be likeable or relatable. They can have some sort of hubris that makes them a bit dickish, but keeps them human and makes us sympathize with them because we ourselves have our own character flaws that we need to overcome. However, Bullock is not relatable in the least and nothing that she does makes us like her, save for helping Michael. She is an upper-class woman who is isolated from most of the world (though that’s not a conflict in this movie, just part of her character.) She is controlling, angry, and very narrow-minded. (Again, not conflict, just part of her lovable character.) Nothing in her life goes wrong. She acts as a god figure who just makes everything great for Michael. Any time someone complains, she insults them or makes a sassy remark. Everything goes her way because she complains if things don’t. We never see any inner or other conflict of her character, so she remains two-dimensional, and a completely unnecessary character (again, except for the fact that she brought Michael in.), but she is the protagonist of the film, not Michael.

2) Bitchy is the only emotion she shows, and even that isn’t very convincing. The Academy loves over acting, and when actors portray “normal people,” that normally isn’t enough to get them a nomination. They like nominating people who play drug-addicts, tragic heroes, figures from history, insane murderers, or at the very least, characters who live several lives. 2000-2008, six of the nine winning actresses played historical figures, while the fictional characters included a boxer who refused to give up on her dream, a Jewish woman in post WWII Germany and has an affair with a teenage boy, and Halle Berry. The fact that Sandra Bullock won, seems out of character for the academy. I’m not saying the academy is ever right, but they do at least pick people who have emotions or scenes where they cry, do something drastic, or shout in anger. Bullock gives sass…and that’s it.

3) Everything she says sounds fake. This is more the fault of the Hallmark card writer that they got to make the script, but still, if she isn’t relatable at all, and everything she says sounds like the exact opposite of what most human beings say, why on earth would she even get a nomination. And it isn’t like what she says are character extremes, but are just illogical or contradictory. Example: She is hanging out with her lady friends at a nice restaurant eating nice expensive salads, in their nice expensive clothes talking gossip about people. Then the ladies make assumptions about Michael and Anne says “Shame on you for thinking that! How dare you?!” She says this 5 seconds after assuming things about other people, and about 5 minutes after making the assumption that Michael will steal from her…what the shit?! And when she does say things that make sense, they are things most people don’t say because its common sense. Example: Every line where she talks about how Michael is part of the family and they want him to stay. Finally, every other line of dialogue is an insult, sarcastic remark or cliché one-liner. Example: “I find him very attractive.” Husband: “I’m right here, you know.” Anne: “I know.” Example 2: “The quarterback is your family. You protect his “Blind Side” (oh hey, that’s the title of the movie! Yeah!), when you protect him, you think of me”.

Side note: When I heard that last line mentioned above, I thought of the scene in the Water Boy where Bobby kicks a guy in the face because he insults his mother. I then realized that The Blind Side and The Water Boy have an equivalent entertainment value.

Now I understand that Sandra Bullock’s character is supposed to be cool because she doesn’t take other people’s crap, and she will make a joke insulting the person’s incompetence to be as awesome as her, and she’s a strong independent woman, but all of those elements just come out as an unkind person. So we have an unkind person who is at the same time so perfect that she has no character flaws, no conflict, no emotion, and void of anything likeable or relatable. This is our protagonist, portrayed by Sandra Bullock, who won every award ever for this role. I just don’t understand why she won. It seems completely illogical. And the academy never screws up. Remember Crash?

If your still reading this, you’ll notice we haven’t even gotten into the plot yet. So lets see how many casualties there are in this train wreck of a film.

Ok, so the film starts off with Michael “Big Mike” Oher with his friend Steven going up to school basketballs that are just sitting there, not locked away. Steven says “Boy, white people are stupid.” This is the only line of dialogue in the film that can count as screenwriting, though I don’t think it was written at all, and the actor was just warning the audience what was in store for them in this film. Steven’s father talks to the school sports coach, trying to enroll the two boys into school. Michael ends up at this private, catholic school, but is homeless and walks around the streets, trying to find a place to stay. We then are shown the Tuohy family, which consists of an adorable little boy who speaks like an adult and says the darnest things, a teenage daughter who doesn’t say much, but deep down, cares a lot about her family, a father who is just a care-free cool dad who has no balls, and the mother, who won’t stand for lip, and gets things her way. If this sounds like a family of original characters, please drop something heavy on your foot, then go to your nearest hospital to receive medical attention for your broken toe and fucked up mind. The family has nothing going wrong. They have lots of money, and lots of good things. They come along Michael, and Anne takes him in like a good American should. Now Michael has lots of conflict. He was taken from his mother as a child, separated from his brother, homeless, very shy, under pressure from bad guys in his neighborhood, and although he’s very talented and built to be a football player, he can’t participate because he struggles in school. He’s a complex character that goes through an arch, changing throughout the story and at the end becoming an NFL player. Poverty, homelessness, and hopelessness to the NFL. That’s a big change and a great accomplishment. He is a supporting character, and has around 20 lines of dialogue overall. In the mean time, the main character goes from a rich white woman without problems and settled down with her family to a rich white woman without problems and settled down with her family which now includes someone who is more interesting than cardboard. Question: feel free to answer the question aloud. How would you feel if Lord of the Rings wasn’t about the Fellowship but about the giant eagles? Bad example, that would be awesome. Ok, how would you feel if Star Wars wasn’t about Luke, but C3-PO? Sure, this idea may also sound cool, but C3-PO isn’t much of a character since he is a robot who doesn’t have emotions and is just around for comic relief and presenting facts. Its effective…as a supporting character. No matter what happens to him, he will be the same as he started off because he has no conflict. So conclusions we can make on this? Sandra Bullock is a droid, and the only character who changes at all is pushed to the side. So essentially, this movie is watching rich white people to rich white people things and along the way help a poor black child become a part of their rich white family and do good things in sports (from the people who brought you “Politicians do Politician things (Minus Sex, Drugs, and Murder)”.)

Now for the writing. The fact that there are people who exist in the world who write this dialogue and are satisfied with this work is astounding. The only way in which that actually people wrote this is if the writers wrote birthday cards and fortune cookies for a living or they were both diagnosed with a disease that forces them to WRITE SHITTY DIALOGUE! This movie was overwhelmed with happy goodness and sweetness and kindness and crap that bogs down the entire story. What the writers neglect, apart from everything, is that feel good movie can’t be made of all feel good moments. You need conflict. You need something bad to happen that makes the good shine through even more. Movies of redemption, sacrifice, charity and every story of good vs. evil is more uplifting than this movie. Because the journey of pain ultimately pays off, and the positive that’s achieved has so much more meaning. When you give your audience a perfect world with no problems they can’t relate to the movie because their life sucks, then they get envious of that life, and then kill the filmmaker and then themselves. Do you want that blood on your hands, writers? I think our good friend, Samwise Gamgee, summarizes my thoughts best:

“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”

This quote shows what makes great uplifting stories mean something, and cause the audience to emote. (Congrats Blind Side. Lord of the Rings is a kinder and gentler movie than you.) It also shows exactly what the character of Michael goes through. Audiences don’t want a perfect world where everything goes well, without a hitch. The fact that this movie presents this family as this infallible being of greatness that can make all thing go right, is just mean to audiences and fake. This is why the story should have been about the person who started off homeless and ended up in the NFL, rather than the unlikable person who remains unlikable. With no change, no one cares, and no one feels inspired. In the famous book, “The Little Engine that Could” The train engine struggles, and has some doubt in himself, but ultimately overcomes his obstacles. (Congrats, Blind Side. The Little Engine that Could is more hardcore than you.)

Now some people may be roped in by the football aspect. The fact that it is a sports movie is reason enough to go, and you want to see someone improve at the sport and ultimately end up at the top. Well, for starters, this movie had one football game shown on screen. It also shows a football coach that is completely inept at his job (also his name is Coach Cotton. Do with that what you will.) I would now like to remind you of Disney’s “Remember the Titans”. This film deals with some of the same issues. It deals with race, overcoming ones obstacles so they can play football, and befriending others. This movie also had:

1) An adorable child actor who cares a lot about football.

2) Southerners trying to deal with the whole “black people” thing.

3) A scene where the main character becomes not a racist.

4) A scene where a bigot in the football stands is put in his place by a main character.

5) A car crash.

6) A token democrat.

7) A happy ending.

Every single ones of these things is done better in Titans than Blind Side. The kid in Titans doesn’t try to be adorable and say catchphrases. The southerners in Blind Side seemed either cartoonishly evil with their racism, or completely indifferent to the situation. The not racist scene in Blind Side is as follows. Anne: “I hope he doesn’t steal anything.” (next scene) Anne:“how dare you. How dare you make assumptions about him like that.” The bigot scene in Titians isn’t treated as a scene for the main character to show some more sassy language. The Blind Side is the only movie in the world ever, in which a car crash does not represent a down point for any characters but instead tries to get a laugh out of the audience from a small child who is bleeding and needs medical attention. The Blind Side gets a bitter old woman who hates things while Titans gets a Californian hippie who loves everyone. The Blind Side never changes its tone of painful optimism and ends with a hug. Remember the Titans ends at a funeral, but the spirit of the players and what they accomplished makes the end hopeful and happy. (Congrats, Blind Side. Disney is darker and edgier than you.)

By the way, I’m not done with the script. When I said that every line was a cathphrase, it wasn’t an exaggeration. The movie can’t have dialogue because every character just goes “Ah-ha. Something witty or inspirational sounding” or “here is my assist for your character to slam dunk a wonderful catchphrase” or “witty and sassy response to idiot character’s statement”.

The following quotes where taking from imdb quotes section for “The Blind Side”.

Michael: I never had one before.
Anne: A room to yourself?
Michael: A bed.

Michael: (After pushing an opponent off the field) Sorry coach. I stopped when I heard the whistle.
Coach: Where were you taking him?
Michael: The bus. It was time for him to go home.

Anne: You can thank me later…it’s later.

This only names several of the horrific tragedies that are the lines of dialogue in this script. Batman and Robin had less clichés than this film, and the worst part is that you can’t even laugh at the Blind Side. It’s not an absurd movie, and its clear that its trying to be taken seriously. Its problem is that it lacks the words and story to pull off serious. Its like a short child yelling at you “Quit it, you meanies!” You’d kick the shit out of that kid. No one is going to pay attention to that annoyance. Now, try to fuck with another Pest Picture nominee, Shawshank Redemption. You would die. No question. It will shank you without giving you a warning. Let’s try another family movie, Up. You talk shit about him and he will approach you, and articulate every way you are a failure and then you would kill yourself. How about another movie on racism, American History X. Now, if you were stupid enough to take a swing at him, you would find out that his body is made of steel. He would then laugh as he crushes your windpipe. (Congrats, Blind Side. You have no friends in movie high school. Time to sit at the loner table with Tyler Perry.)

This movie serves as an example of pandering to an audience gone horribly wrong. It tries to over simplify everything and then cover it all with fluff and glitter. (Congrats, Blind Side. You’re the kindergartener who eats paste.) It tries to get the suburban white crowd by showing them what they know and taming material like gang violence and drug use. It tries (and succeeds) in getting the academy vote by telling an “inspirational” story involving a black person. It tries to get kids with the football and hilarious dialogue. It presents itself as a family movie/gripping adult drama/ fun comedy/ sports movie that fails on all levels as I said beginning this whole review. It takes out anything controversial (which incidentally, makes it controversial) and bogs down the whole film with its overwhelming happiness. It’s not the happy fun stuff that makes films good. Writer Henrik Ibsen wrote about things in society that happened, but no one ever talked about. People at the time were outraged by presenting this crude language and action in his plays. But the fact of the matter is that what he wrote was important and had meaning. What made his characters relatable is that they thought how people then thought, even if they didn’t say it aloud. When one has material that calls for gang violence, car crashes, racism, anger, hatred, loneliness, and drugs, you can’t give the audience a happy family sitting down for a nice Thanksgiving smile with loving faces. In fact, what may be the worst part of this film were the two seconds when Michael picks up the painting “Family of Want” (http://www.frugal-cafe.com/public_html/frugal-blog/frugal-cafe-blogzone/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/rockwell-freedom-of-want.jpg) which is the epitome of creepy dystopia-like family that pretends all is well. What’s so funny is that it tries to relate the painting to the family in that it is happy, but unintentionally shows us that, like the picture, it’s a look at something fake, and not representing what is truly going on.

This movie is insulting, fake, boring, useless, and completely without any likable characters or and conflict whatsoever. This movie may not be the worst movie of all time, but as there was nothing I found good about this film, it gets the lowest score I can offer.

FINAL RATING 1/10

P.S. Remember the Titans: 8/10