The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, Blu-ray (2014)
Cast: Robin Williams, James Earl Jones, Mila Kunis, Melissa Leo
Video: 1.78:1 for 16:9 1080p HD color
Audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Studio: Lionsgate [7/22/15]
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Extras: “The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, Behind the Rage,” Gag reel
Length: 84 min.
Rating: ****
I understand this one won’t be in the theaters nationwide, and it’s rather a shame, because it asks the question “What would you do if you knew you were going to die at a specific time?” Henry is a bitter middle-aged man who, after being in the waiting room for two hours, has just received a bad diagnosis from a stand-in doctor about his brain aneurysm. He pushes her to reveal how long he has to live and looking about the room in her frustation, the young doctor notices a magazine cover about how to baste a turkey and she utters “90 minutes!”
This is not a comedy, and there is much complaining online about the amount of profanity in it. (I’m so used to it I didn’t even notice.) Henry, who spends most of his time in a snit over things that make him angry, storms out of the hospital deciding how to spend the last 90 minutes of his life. He calls a lunch meeting of all the important people in his past life and only one old classmate shows up, with whom he has a fight. He searches for a video camera, finds one that is charged, and finds a homeless person to shoot it. But in attempting to make a video apologizing to his son, he quickly gets into his high anger mode again. Getting back to his apartment he learns that his wife has been having a relationship with the next-door neighbor all along.
The young doctor realizes her malpractice and pill-popping, and goes off to try to track down Henry and explain to him. Henry even jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge but she jumps in and rescues him. I shouldn’t spoil the ending of this not-perfect script, but Williams does make the most out of it. You may be quite choked up by the end of it.
—John Sunier