Rating: 
Summary: Mixed feelings about this one
Review: I just got done watching this movie, and I'm a bit torn on which side of the discussion I'm going to come down on.I was curious to see how Branagh (whom I usually love) was going to do a Southern accent. I think he struggled on this. He did an OK accent, but being a Northerner, I'm going to have to defer on others on how good his accent was. At least he didn't have a broad drawl. The plot was pretty suspenseful. One did feel a definite sense of foreboding when Branagh's children were involved. Unlike other reviewers, I thought the subplot about the storm added an interesting twist. Two other great actors, Robert Duvall and Robert Downey, Jr. were good in the film, although neither had a lot of screen time. I must confess that it was pretty easy to figure out what was going to happen, so the ending wasn't a giant surprise. Films these days all seem to offer a twist at the end, so I think we are all trying to out-guess the filmmakers. It was pretty easy this time. Moderately recommended. The film's actors bail out what really should have been a better film. Pick a rainy day to watch it (it really does rain all the time).
Rating:
Summary: Another Excelent Performance From Branagh
Review: I really enjoyed this film. It thought the plot was extremely gripping and the twist at the end was incredibly thrilling. There was a slow spot or two, but the acting really made up for it. Kenneth Branagh was absolutely superb, as usual. He portrayed the southern lawyer personality to a T and the accent was dead on. Plus, I didn't mind having to stare at him for two hours. Even if you don't like the movie, watching Branagh is well worth your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth buying, not worth even renting
Review: I rented this movie, because it featured a few actors I truly like and respect, such as Branagh and Downey Jr. However, I felt this was a real waste of time. The movie is set in Savannah, GA and it rains all through the film, which I felt was totally unnecessary. The setting had nothing to do with the plot, so I felt the whole southern accent thing was unnecessary distraction. The plot starts out boring. You feel that something is up, and you can easily guess what is going to happen next, because frankly there is no other alternative. If you have absolutely nothing else to do, and you catch this on TV, just take a look at it, and you'll see what I mean... Also, I agree with the reviewers who said that noone acts like this in real life. At many points, the actions of the characters just anger the viewer, because they are unrealistic, or simply stupid.
Rating: 
Summary: This is a big disappointment
Review: I was prepared for another wonderful Grisham story and found instead a boring film that I had a hard time watching all the way through. I bought the video because of the Grisham name, and I wish I could return it. It was a waste of money and is a waste of space on my shelf. I am truly disappointed in this film.
Rating:
Summary: Good movie, but...
Review: Kenneth Branagh is a divorced Savannah lawyer, who is attracted to a waitress in an office party. By going over to her house, he gets more than some casual sex. He immediatelly involves himself in defending her from her unstable father, and goes in over his head because things are not as they seem. The movie, acting, and plot are great, and are very impressive on the first watching. But after watching it for the first time, once you know all the plot twists, you can watch the movie a few more times to get some more depth before it gets boring and predictable... So you might give buying this DVD (instead of renting it out) another thought...
Rating:
Summary: Booooooring
Review: Leonard Maltin had it right, this movie is ridiculous. Whoever said that Robert Altman is great director is equally ridiculous. This movie deserves about as much acclaim as his other hits - Kansas City, Ready to Wear, Short Cuts. This movie was awful - the storm was contrived and the plot idiotic.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but not quite satisfying Altman thriller
Review: Rick Magruder (Kenneth Branagh), a rather arrogant, womanizing lawyer in Savannah, Georgia, has just won a big case against some allegedly overzealous cops. Which is jolly good for his career, unless of course he should develop the sort of problems in life where having the local police hate you might prove a handicap. Which is exactly what he goes and does. A casual sexual entanglement with Mallory Doss (Embeth Davidtz) gets him involved professionally in a conflict with her father (Robert Duvall) who appears to be stalking her. Then when the latter escapes from a psychiatric hospital things start to get complicated. And nothing, it will turn out, is quite what it seems.
Robert Altman, of course, just doesn't do mainstream, run of the mill Hollywood movies. Which makes this an intriguing project for him as what could be more mainstream, run of the mill Hollywood than a hot and sweaty Southern-based legal thriller from a John Grisham story? The result is certainly interesting, though not helped by the casting of one of my least favourite actors, the consistently lacklustre Kenneth Branagh, in the lead role. On the plus side, the cinematography by Changwei Gu (who had earlier shot`Red Sorghum' and `Farewell My Concubine') is superb and the long opening shot of the Savannah River is altogether breathtaking.
The film as a whole is certainly well worth a look: dark, shadowy, intriguing and twisty but somehow less than wholly satisfying. Here everything depends on your choice of comparison class. As Grisham adaptations go, it's brilliant, surely the best. As Altman movies go it's only so-so.
Rating:
Summary: A FAIRY TALE : ALTHAM & GRISHMAN
Review: THE GINGERBREAD MAN is a very good movie, one of the best of Robert Altman's fluctuent career. The big question was : How an independent filmmaker such as Altman would cope with a John Grisham script ? No problem at all, in fact. I don't know from which one came the idea to create a fairy tale world around a southern lawyer story, but it was a great idea. So we have a lawyer which drives a red car and goes by night in a forest to find a very mean ogre who doesn't wear shoes. Doesn't this story remind you something ? You can have fun to count how many tales's plots Altman and Grisham have used in this story. Believe me or not, there are a lot of them. A DVD for the child in you.
Rating: 
Summary: HALF BAKED COOKIE
Review: THE GINGERBREAD MAN is based on an original screenplay by legal novelist John Grisham and directed by Oscar nominated Robert Altman, featuring a cast of reputable actors. The main problem is that the plot's so-called twist is obvious from the moment Mallory steals an ashtray from Rick Magruder's office and her car is "conveniently stolen." From thereon, the plot moves a little too slowly towards a not wholly satisfying denouement. Along the way, we're treated to some interesting, althought not spectacular, acting. Kenneth Branagh does his Southern accent dutifully well for a Brit, but his performance is too hammy at times to be convincing; Embeth Davidtz as Mallory invokes little sympathy because the discerning viewer knows there's more than meets the eye; Darryl Hannah is hardly recognizable as Lois, an associate of Branagh, whose main function seems more clerical than legal; Tom Berenger shows up as Davidtz's ex-husband, whose mere presence in a seemingly incidental role is in itself a plot give-away; Robert Downey Jr. appears as Clyde, Branagh's private investigator who is a hopeless alcoholic; and Robert Duvall, looking foolish in a baldpate and long hair, has an enigmatic but pivotal role as Davidtz's eccentric if not looney father.
Never being one of Altman's greatest fans, I can commend him on trying to add a different touch to a rather familiar formula, including the relentless rain during Hurricane Geraldo. But ultimately, THE GINGERBREAD MAN comes out half-baked and unfulfilling, wasting a lot of Oscar caliber talent.
Rating:
Summary: Not Quite Good
Review: The Gingerbread Man should be a better noir than it is. A primary flaw is its inability to get us behind its protagonist in any way- Rick MacGruder (Kenneth Branagh) is pompous, vain, and tempestuous. As an attorney, he is the polar opposite of Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch, willing to sink to any level in order to win a case. When MacGruder helps a young woman deal with her mentally unstable father, we know he is doing so out of a desire to get in her pants rather than any sort of altruism. It is simply hard to care for him as his situation deteriorates- indeed, one almost gets the feeling that karma is simply at work. Another issue is the plot. While twists and turns are fine, this film saves all of them for the final thirty minutes, and they feel a little overwhelming. While you are trying to figure out how one twist happened, the next one barrels onto the screen. Stylistically, the film has some interesting and cool moments. The slick opening shot, accompanied by the discordant score, takes us over the Georgia coastal plain and eventually tracks MacGruder's car over the Talmadge Bridge and into Savannah. It hardly matters that traveling from Jacksonville to Savannah (as we are told) doesn't take you over said bridge. The setting is an important part of the story, and Savannah is a location that never fails to lend its uniqueness to a film. On the whole, The Gingerbread Man has some genuinely suspenseful moments (Duvall is particularly menacing) but it is otherwise disengaging. I was waiting for it to end.
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