Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen - Maltin, Leonard [87]
Shadowboxer was dismissed by many reviewers as being outlandish and unbelievable. But I found myself in its thrall, possibly because I’m such a fan of Helen Mirren. I was willing to accept every implausibility because the picture created and maintained a fascinating mystique. Is it realistic? No…and I don’t think it’s trying to be. Is it intriguing to enter the world of unreality that the film creates? Absolutely.
To my mind, Helen Mirren is reason enough to watch any film. Here, she plays a hit man—or hit woman, if you prefer—who is dying of cancer. She lives and works with a younger partner, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. Theirs is a highly unusual relationship that’s both personal and professional, which is revealed one layer at a time as the movie progresses. Despite his devotion to her, he is completely unprepared for her to make the decision she does when confronted with an assignment to shoot a pregnant woman (Vanessa Ferlito).
Stephen Dorff costars as Ferlito’s brutally violent husband, and other small roles are filled by such familiar faces as Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mo’Nique, and Macy Gray.
Shadowboxer marks the directorial debut of Lee Daniels, an entrepreneur whose producing credits include such challenging dramas as Monster’s Ball and The Woodsman. While he took his lumps for this ambitious blend of crime caper and love story, he couldn’t have asked for more committed performances from his stars. (He fared considerably better with his next film, Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire, in 2009.)
If you reject stylized storytelling, or have no stomach for violence, you might skip this recommendation.
If you reject stylized storytelling, or have no stomach for violence, you might skip this recommendation. But if you like Mirren and Gooding, and are willing to give them some rope, you just might find yourself drawn into this unusual film.
120. SOMETHING NEW
(2006)
Directed by Sanaa Hamri
Screenplay by Kriss Turner
Actors:
SANAA LATHAN
SIMON BAKER
MIKE EPPS
DONALD FAISON
BLAIR UNDERWOOD
WENDY RAQUEL ROBINSON
ALFRE WOODARD
GOLDEN BROOKS
TARAJI P. HENSON
EARL BILLINGS
JOHN RATZENBERGER
Here’s a movie that lives up to its name, offering something new—and refreshing—in the discouraging field of romantic comedies. It’s bad enough that so many films in this genre seem contrived and mechanical, but far too often I get the feeling that the stars and filmmakers don’t really believe in what they’re doing. If they don’t, how can we?
Something New is a happy exception to that pattern, and not just because of its racial twist. Sanaa Lathan (who made a big impression on me in the 2000 movie Love and Basketball) is excellent as Kenya McQueen, an educated and successful businesswoman from an upwardly mobile black family in Los Angeles. She would never think of linking herself with a white man—“It’s not a prejudice, it’s just a preference,” she says—until she finds herself attracted to landscape architect Simon Baker (star of television’s The Mentalist), whom she’s hired to redo her garden.
The movie scores because it gets the details right. Screenwriter Kriss Turner is a veteran of TV comedy series like The Bernie Mac Show and Everybody Hates Chris, but she goes beyond sitcom slickness and imbues her characters with three dimensions. Throughout the movie she tweaks our expectations and sensibilities by showing what Lathan has to endure to maintain her relationship with Baker. That includes the open skepticism of her girlfriends and the outright disbelief of her family, especially her wise-guy brother, played by Donald Faison.
Music-video director Sanaa Hamri realizes all the potential in a screenplay that’s as much about upward mobility as it is about love. Unlike so many comedies that portray