Good Will Hunting
 

Okay, who's seen it? I have been wanting to see it for god knows how long. Robin Williams in a highly performed drama? Sounds excellent. I have seen the trailer on youtube, and it looks excellent; hopefully the movie delivers. Who's seen it and what are your thoughts? Try to rate on a one to ten scale.

Re: Good Will Harding
 

I haven't seen it, but you should know that it's Hunting, not Harding.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

Yes. Error, that's all. In-fact on IMDb there's quite active user that is named Good Will Harding, so there's where I probably made the error.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

I love Good Will Hunting. Its one of Van Sant's more commercial films, just like this years Milk and 1995's To Die For (both are excellent). It may be more Academy friendly than his bi-annual drifts into art cinema but that is not to its detriment. Pulled along by a great script from Kevin Smith's sophomoric accomplices, Damon and Affleck, the film is moving and inspirational in its own very self-aware way. Often it is accused of being a bit crass, a bit sensational but hey, i'm your sucker for that if you can do it well.

http://snarkerati.com/movie-news/fil..._jy26_1_01.jpg

Sean: So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny... on every art book ever written. Michelangelo? You know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations. Him and the pope. Sexual orientation. The whole works, right? I bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. Seeing that. If I ask you about women, you'll probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman... and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. I ask you about war, you'd probably ah throw Shakespeare at me, right? "Once more into the breach, dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap... and watched him gasp his last breath lookin' to you for help. If I asked you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet, but you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes. Feelin' like God put an angel on Earth just for you, who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleepin' sittin' up in a hospital room... for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes... that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. I look at you. I don't see an intelligent, confident man. I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius, Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine. You ripped my ****in' life apart. You're an orphan, right? Do you think that I'd know the first thing about how hard your life has been - how you feel, who you are - because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally, I don't give a **** about all that, because - You know what? I can't learn anything from you... I can't read in some ****in' book. Unless you wanna talk about you, who you are. And I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't wanna do that, do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

I haven't seen Good Will Hunting in a very long time. I'm tempted to check it out again simply because my taste in movies has changed and I think I might like it more than I did the first time around. Then again, I could be totally wrong.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

I havent seen it yet.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

I loathe this movie. Utterly fake, dumb, self-congratulatory and all around vile. Damon makes for a repugnant hero, blaming the world for his horrible nature (the film is written so that everybody ends up agreeing with this horrible little man and validating his horrible behaviour). Williams, who is regularly dreadful, has never been worse.

1/10, if that.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

There is no doubt in my mind that the film is 'self-congratulatory', yet I would argue that the film never validates Will Hunting's (Damon) behaviour. He is no anti-hero in the mould of a Travis Bickle or Jef Costello per se, in fact your right, he is a rogueish psuedo-intellectual scrot who looks at anyone but himself to find the root of his problems.

For me however, the film is aware of this. Furthermore, the film recognises Hunting's need to repress his inner demons and channel his intelligence towards a career. Granted it is a bit dumb; one has to ask what happens to those morally bankrupt individuals without even a semblance of Hunting's brainpower. Even if the script is a bit misguided in places, for a couple of rookie screenwriters it is not a bad few pages in my opinion.

The thing is though, I can see where your coming from and I can certainly understand how someone could read the film in such a way.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

I love this film but, trying to be objective about it, I'd say it was a to . Certainly worth a look if you haven't seen it before.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

Great film and great soundtrack.

Elliott Smith!!!

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

Fenwick has taken a much more intellectual look at Good Will Hunting than I have and has made some good points in his post.

I've watched it twice and really enjoyed it for the underdog story that it is on the surface.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

Don't remember much of it , which is usually a sign of a bad film.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

Well, I've always given it a 7/10, and (as usual) I have no desire to change it.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

I saw it last night, I actually expected more. Williams and Damon's performance were very good, but I thought it would of had a more "emotional and compelling" theme to it. Still a good movie with a excellent ending. Won't buy it or anything.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

Good Will Hunting is a great movie, Robain Williams steals the show and Matt Damon put's in a great performance. Ben Affleck is overlooked in my opinion, I think the movie really shows both Damon's and Affleck's talents as both performers and writer's (plus the Oscar probably backs up the writing) Just a great film that I would recommend to anyone

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

I enjoyed the movie Good Will Hunting. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Robin Williams were quite good in this film, as was Minnie Diver, who played the part of Skylar. The town-gown relations depicted in the movie were also quite interesting.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

Review now in the right thread :)

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

That's an absurd assessment, stevo.

Perhaps you have an aversion to Van Sant films? Do you hate Damon and Williams in general?

Good Will Hunting is overrated, but has its moments -- and certainly isn't the godawful picture you've painted.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

Any aversion to van Sant or Damon I may have started with this picture, which holds a special place in my memory as the worst I have ever actually gone to the cinema to see (so, ok, perhaps I hate it more as it stole my money as well as my time). I believed none of it; felt no sympathy at any of the points the film strained so transparently for it; saw nothing but standard-issue Hollywood inspiration movie, leadenly done, and misdirected; found it irritating that a movie with exceptional intelligence as its focus was so dumb.

Oh yeah, I forgot Williams, who I admittedly have never liked. He's actually the only thing in this movie I can look back on and smile. His wise but tough act is hilarious (in a way his comedy never is). 'I will end you!' :lol:

Beyond the unintentional comedy of that terrible performance though, 'godawful' would be one of the kinder words I would use to describe this.

I must say Fenwick did a heroic job defending it, and if you read the film his way, the film might not count as so vile and irritating. (It'd still be crap though :p.)

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

Fair enough -- and well played. Perhaps "worthless" is the adjective you're hunting for here. ;)

In a nutshell, I enjoyed the movie but found it uneven and indulgent: For every two quality scenes, there'd be a bad one. Williams had a few groaners and I'm no Affleck fan, but overall its performances rang true.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.
:dizzy:

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

Horrible?
No

Amazing/Excellent?
No

Somewhere in the Middle?
Yes

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

I'd go with 'somewhere in the middle' too.

Let's start with the good. Even though Damon co-wrote the script and played the lead (although his mate Ben Affleck's role is so awful that I imagine he can't have written much), this doesn't get in the way of the film. He's believable as an obnoxious brat with talent (we'll get onto the character later on). Everyone else performs well too. And as a film about growing up and finding a nice girl, it works. It is superficially enjoyable, which is not always a bad thing.

Now the bad. The most obvious thing is the excessive amount of swearing. No character- not even the professionals- can talk without swearing or being crass and vulgar. The movie has a lot of talking in it and maybe the swearing was done so the youngsters would think it was 'cool' and 'real'; these street kids are not 'gritty', they're repellant.

Then we get on to Will's character. Like I said, Damon does the part well...but what a badly written part it is! Will is an arrogant jerk who is good at everything. Not just maths, as I originally believed. EVERYTHING. Everybody loves Will, despite the fact that he is a jerk. Skylar (the love interest, played by Minnie Driver. Nobody in England has the name 'Skylar') is the only one to really call him out on it, although she soon comes round- the shrink, played by Robin Williams, makes an attempt but it's only because he loves him. And the professor, played by Stellan Skarsgard- whose accent veers from American to Swedish- tells Will he has something wrong (shocking!) but really, he's jealous that he isn't as wonderful and pretty as Will.

And the inconsistancies. The film is pretty implausible- if you're looking for a shallow but enjoyable film, you will laugh these off. I laughed them off although others will probably be really annoyed. The shrink gets touchy at the most obvious dig a patient could make. Will is a genius across the academic board, despite the fact that we never see him reading a book once and his vocabulary is not of the standard of an educated man. Shrink tells Will not to 'jerk off' (metaphorically). No one finds Will annoying except the audience. And no doubt there are implausibilities with the maths.

And finally, the premise. The film raises an interesting question: if you have an incredible talent, do you have a duty to use it? I thought I was going to watch an interesting film about the merits and downfalls of being academic (a bit like Educating Rita with Maths) but they did nothing with the question. Will's gift might as well have been being insanely good looking for all the difference it made to the film. Feel free to amuse yourself by mentally replacing 'maths' with whatever talent you like. I liked the professor because he seemed to have a genuine passion for maths (interesting that it wasn't an arts subject), but the poor thing was punished for it (how dare one have ambitions!). Academics in films always seem to have some sort of problem just because they're passionate about a subject. English gets a relatively good treatment, like in Dead Poet's Society- which works because the teacher and students are genuinely passionate about literature, but are not portrayed as weird for doing so. Unfortunately Maths does not get such treatment, even though I'm sure there are people who have a passion for it.

Thus ends the very long review.

Well, I thought it ran true, for me anyway! I know a guy like the one Will played. "Everybody loves Will, despite the fact that he is a jerk" The mate who I know and occasionally catch up with today, was a jerk! And surprisingly enough, everybody loved him, though not people he robbed and fought, naturally.

My mate wasn't a "genius" but he was tested when he was 15 an supposedly his I.Q. was through the roof.

I don't recall when watching Good Will Hunting I was shocked by the excessive use of profanity. But you have to look at the context of the swearing. He comes from South Boston, a rough neighbourhood where swearing can be sometimes the culture, especially among young Men.

Being a genius Mathematician doesn't mean you're some great orator.

I for one, enjoyed this Film immensely. For I have placed it in my Top 10, and watched it at least a half of dozen times. I know a guy like this, I know mates like the characters Ben, and his brother played. I also relate to how you want the best for your mate, even if that means letting him go, so he can see bigger & better things.....like Ben Affleck's character did. Which is his best Character to date, quite frankly.

I enjoyed the film but I thought it could have been better and done more with Will's 'gift'.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

It looks like I won't win you over. :)

awesome movie..

I liked Good Will Hunting, it was a good movie, 7/10. I thought the story was interesting and character driven, which is always a plus for me in a movie. Damon gave a very good performance, Affleck didn't have enough of a role (although I think his talent lies in comedy), and thought Williams was excellent.

I liked Good Will Hunting-- I've known a few gifted and talented people who never did anything with it. Good theme for a movie.

Re: Good Will Hunting
 

I Love this movie

Oh how I adore Robin Williams' performance. It really is one of his better roles that displays his range. I find his character, and Damon's so inspiring.