Movie Review: The Blind Side

THREE THINGS I LIKED:

1. THE "TRUE" PART OF THE "TRUE STORY" IT'S BASED UPON — The Blind Side gets to use that time-tested five-word phrase by being based upon the Michael Lewis book about the evolution of football strategy over the past three decades (loosely touched on in the film's opening look at the career-ending injury to Joe Theismann) and the remarkable true story of Michael Oher. Indeed, the young man's rise from the streets to the NFL's Baltimore Ravens will probably make for a pretty good movie one day, but for now I guess this film about Erin Brockovich Leigh Ann Touhy will have to do. 
   
2. OF 2009 RELEASES ABOUT LARGE BLACK TEENAGERS OVERCOMING OBSTACLES, THIS GOES DOWN A LOT EASIER THAN PRECIOUS — Polar opposites, really. Whereas Precious seemingly wanted to do nothing but beat you down, there's never a moment that The Blind Side isn't trying to lift you up. It was a different sort of wanting to kill myself, I guess.
3. THE ONE SCENE THAT GLORIOUSLY SURPRISED ME — At least Young MC's still getting royalties, I suppose. Up in the Air actually got the guy to perform "Bust a Move," a song I used to like most because of how my buddy nailed it every time at karaoke. But now it manages to induce groans and cringes from me for how often it's utilized for scenes just like the one it pops up in here, a grating shared sing-along session involving Oher (Quinton Aaron) and the profoundly irritating 10-year-old S.J. (Jae Head, exhibiting sheer mastery if the goal was to dissuade me from ever wanting to father children). That said, I won't deny that I bursted out in laughter with that scene's ultimate twist.

THREE THINGS I DIDN'T:

1. SANDRA BULLOCK IS PATRONIZING, NOT A PATRON SAINT — If you're not going to bother making Oher much of a character, I suppose you might as well design the script such that every scene for your lead actress gives her the best possible shot at winning an Oscar. The Blind Side makes sure to let Bullock get the better of every single crowd-pleasing scenario necessary, be it with the drug dealers in a dimly lit parking lot or the racist snobby bitches of upper-class lunch settings. She's all charitable, all the time. Too bad the thing she isn't is believable.
   
2. "DON'T ACT, JUST LOOK REALLY BLACK" — Quinton Aaron wasn't given a tremendous amount of dialogue to remember, as director John Lee Hancock seems to prefer just utilizing the actor as a mascot or family pet for the Touhy family at the film's center. As best as I can tell, his only role in this film is just to make every white person that sees him—and then, you know, feels visibly sorry for him for, you know, being black—be that much more self-congratulatory.
3. THIS IS ISN'T HELPING MY HAIR LOSS — What dialogue the film does have had me tugging at the ends of what I've got left. I lost count of the number of lines that made me want to scream as though I had just had my sack clipped, but perhaps no exchange better exemplified how riddled with sports clichés than one of the pre-packaged racists saying to the saintly Leigh Ann, "You've changed his life." Even before that big dramatic pause following the "No" that begins Bullock's corrective response and some swelling music, you know exactly what's coming next. There's never a deviation from formula here, and the entire movie's like that.

25 WORDS OR LESS:

Do I sound cheap for thinking the buck I paid to get this from the Redbox felt like a dollar too much?