GridIron Gang (2006)

3rd American football movie I’ve watched this year (Invincibles and We Are Marshall were the first 2), and probably the better one of the lot. This time, Coach Carter played by Dwayne Johnson (The Rock), forms a football team consisting of juvenile criminals in an attempt to reform them. Not too bad a movie, and hell, The Rock can actually ACT (and I don’t mean just arching his eyebrow).

By the way, it’s Grid Iron not Greedyron. Don’t make the same mistake I did..

Seraphim Falls (2006)

Interesting shocker this one. Expected a typical Western movie, but was pleasantly surprised. Movie pulls you from the very start into a fugitive manhunt between 2 men played by Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan without revealing their identities or their crimes. It’s a psychological vengeance thriller (particularly near the end), and expect a nice little twist when their motives are revealed. Again, a decent movie to watch and a great first effort for writer and director David von Ancken.

Half Nelson (2006)

Half Nelson tells the story about a school teacher dealing with drug addiction, and the subsequent discovery by one of his students. It’s a simple story with no over dramatization. It’s beautifully directed, full of shaky zoomed in hand held shots (its done really very well) and has a score that fits it like a glove by (by the Canadian indie experimental pop rock orchestra group Broken Social Scene)

The characters are real flesh, the sort of people we’d meet every other day, utterly believable & almost touchable (amazing performance by Ryan Gosling). That is its core strength and what the critics loved so much about it (scored a whopping 91% on RottenTomatoes). Unfortunately however, this also brings it down for the average Malaysian audience as we have a tendency of not being able to sit through slow moving dramas. But if you can learn to appreciate the human element in this movie, then you will definitely find a masterpiece. I know I did.. partially..