Reign Over Me

Directed by Mike Binder, Reign Over Me follows Don Cheadle’s Alan Johnson as he attempts to help his college roommate (Adam Sandler’s Charlie Fineman) recover from the deaths of his wife and children on 9/11. It’s potentially searing subject matter that’s employed to watchable yet distressingly lackluster effect by Binder, as the filmmaker, armed with his own screenplay, delivers a wildly inconsistent endeavor that’s been saddled with a whole host of underwhelming, unappealing attributes – with this particularly true of an almost astonishingly silly subplot involving a woman (Saffron Burrows’ Donna) determined to sleep with Cheadle’s married protagonist. And while it’s ultimately clear that the entirety of the movie’s opening hour could (and should) have been trimmed down severely, Reign Over Me does, at least, eventually move into a more somber second half that boasts, at its core, a seriously impressive Sandler performance – with, especially, a searing sequence in which he finally talks about his family undoubtedly standing as the proceedings’ high-water-mark. The end result is a well-intentioned piece of work that generally feels like it could and should be so much better, which is a shame, certainly, given the potential afforded by both the premise and the players.

**1/2 out of ****