The Family Man [2000]

From riches to rags...the American dream. Wait?! Huh? At least, those were my thoughts when I started this film. Nicolas Cage makes another expected appearance. For some reason, he has an attraction to roles with relationship issues. Anyways...a great flick if you want a laugh, a cry, and ultimately a hair-pulling experience.

Nicolas Cage (Jack) lives the high life in Manhattan penthouses. He works as the president of a large brokerage firm making millions. Until...he meets this random black dude in a side-street grocer and his life changes forever. I kept telling Jack, should've just walked away, everything would've been alright. But no, Jack had to go and be a hero and calm the dude down and get him to rethink shooting the cashier over a stupid lottery ticket. Oh, well...I guess we'll never know what really would have happened, because this movie sure doesn't tell you. Apart from leaving the plot outrageously unfulfilled at the end, I don't know much more you could hate about this film.

Tea Leoni (Kate) the mother of 2 kids, a dog, and a time-traveling husband...at least give me points for trying to make it sound interesting. When Jack gets thrown into a different life, he finds himself married to his collegiate sweetheart and they have a family together. She wears the "what's-wrong-with-my-husband" hat well. I must say, having seen her in few to no movies up until this point, I was impressed with her acting. I doubt I'll see her in anything else because I'm sure this ruined her career but hey, who knows maybe some plastic surgery and a name change and then she'll be back in business.

Before I go any further though, I do need to say this: I thought the acting was incredible and the plot had extreme potential and held my attention hoping for a great ending. Well, that's all the good I can say for now. If you want to hear me rant and rave about how much I truly disliked this movie feel free to keep reading. But for those of you who just want to know my rating and whether or not you should waste your time watching it, here you go.

I give this movie 1 out 5 ferraris because of the great acting it saved itself from being a big fat ZERO.

A few things to note:

1. Be careful with little kids and this movie. Potentially a lot of discussion points with your kids because there are quite a few notable points that only knowledgable and mature people will fully grasp, therefore leading younger kids to prod with lots and lots of questions.
2. A little bit of sexual content. Definitely skippable stuff and you won't miss a thing, at least I didn't. 
3. Language was minimal. At this point, I think the director was trying to redeem this movie by hopefully thrusting it back into the family section by removing all the cursing. Instead, the movie slid right past the family section into the garbage.
4. If you decide to ignore my warnings and see this movie instead, heed this advice please, turn your brain off and don't even think about a happy ending. Rather, pierce your eardrums and close your eyes before watching the movie and you'll most likely enjoy it more than the person sitting next to you.

I feel like I've said enough bad stuff about this horribly horrendous movie. Take my advice, leave the movie in the $5 bin at Wal-mart and don't let the taunting description on the back entice you to lose 2 hours of your life. Instead, go play Laser tag or something more exciting.

Thanks for reading.

~from the library of J.B. Wadsworth