Reign Over Me
Studio: Sony Pictures Releasing
Rated: R
Cast: Don Cheadle, Adam Sandler, Saffron Burrows, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Liv Tyler
Director: Mike Binder
WorkNameSort: Reign Over Me
Our Rating: 3.50
Unlike last year’s United 93 or World Trade Center, which focused entirely on the events of Sept. 11, director/screenwriter Mike Binder’s Reign Over Me tackles the reverberations of the tragedy five years later in the life of an emotionally distraught man (Adam Sandler) who lost his wife and daughters that day. His guide back to sanity is his college roommate (Don Cheadle), a happily married father who is slowly becoming disconnected from everything he loves. Somehow, the two men find a way to reach each other and find some semblance of peace and reassurance about the future. It’s odd that this is the first wide-release film about how lives changed forever that day, but Binder delivers a quiet, pensive drama that embraces its nuances while giving the two leading men plenty of chances to embrace their characters’ dysfunction. Sandler surprises, but channels his inner Rain Man too often. There are plenty of tears to be shed here, but, judging by how the studios have buried Binder’s other movies ‘ The Upside of Anger is the most notable example ‘ it’s entirely likely you won’t hear much about this one.
This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2007.