Starring: Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Liv Tyler
Studio: Columbia Pictures 19060
Video: 2.40:1 anamorphic/enhanced for 16:9, 1080p HD color
Audio: English PCM 5.1 uncompressed, English DD 5.1, French DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai
Extras: “The Making of Reign Over Me,” Extended jam session with Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle, A Still Reign Photographic Montage
Length: 124 minutes
Rating: ****
A quietly moving and powerful film about male friendship, with superb acting performances all around, but especially from Sandler – in a role unlike anything he’s ever done and sure to captivate even Sandler-haters. As Charlie Fineman, he is the former college roommate of Alan (Cheadle), who hasn’t run into him since their college days together studying dentistry. Charlie’s wife and three children were aboard one the planes that crashed on 9/11. He has abandoned reality and is holed up in his condo playing computer games and constantly remodeling his kitchen.
When the two former friends run into one another again it eventually proves a positive thing for both of them, but not without a seemingly impossible struggle. It is a tremendous challenge to get Charlie out of his shell, and Alan has some less tragic problems with his family and career. Attempts to hook up Charlie with a psychiatrist prove a huge hurdle. In the end the lives of both men are greatly improved. Charlie lives in his long past music world and the Pete Townshend song Reign Over Me is on the soundtrack as well as providing the film’s title.
The film was shot on the latest hi-def video and the director speaks in the featurette of the advantages in depth of field during the night shooting due to the higher sensitivity without graininess which the video process provided. It enabled long shots down the canyons of New York City with excellent detail and exposure that would not have been possible on film. It also is more forgiving than film of light sources that are not the proper color temperature, which one would be dealing with during night shooting in any city. The transfer has no obvious artifacts, resolution is perfect, and the uncompressed soundtrack shines even though this is not the sort of film with explosion and gunshots.
– John Sunier
