Good Will Hunting

Rating:
Summary: Great Movie
Review: Matt Damon & Ben Affleck have been friends since they were kids and after they both got into the movie business, they decided to write a movie together. The movie they wrote is one of the most original to come along in a while. The movie takes place in Boston and focuses on relationships in the life of Will Hunting (Matt Damon). Will is a janitor at MIT, but he isn't your ordinary janitor. Will is actually a math genius. When a Professor Lambeau (Stellan Stalksgaard) puts an virtual impossible problem on a board in the hallway for his students to work on during the year. Will figures the problem in a matter of days, Lambeau catches him working on it and finds out who he is. Will spends his spare time drinking with his buddies including his best friend Chuckie (Ben Affleck). They get into a brawl on a basketball court and Will gets thrown in jail. He has a prior record and is facing time, but Lambeau offers him a chance out if he works with him on math theories. Will reluctantly agrees, but as part of his probation, he must see a psychiatrist. Lambeau sends him to his college roommate, Sean McGuire (Robin Williams), who teaches at small Bunker Hill College. Will is at first distant and dismisses Sean. He meets a college student, Sklyer (Minnie Driver), in a bar and they start a romance. Eventual Sean starts to break through to Will as they both have alot in common and Sean isn't after Will's genius. Will eventually confronts his demons and the movie ends on an interesting note. All the actors in the film give first rate performances. Mr. Williams gives the performance of his career and he won the 1997 Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Director Gus Van Zant does a great job of capturing the atmosphere of South Boston. Mr. Damon & Mr. Affleck took home the Oscar for best original screenplay. Good Will Hunting is original, funny, heartwarming and a great film.

Rating:
Summary: JCMICHAELS.COM Good Will Hunting Review
Review: Good Will Hunting is one of those films that I wasn't expecting much, since the writers, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are so young. But surprisingly this young duo was able to write a sophisticated script that, with the direction of Gus Van Sant, became an Academy Award winner. Those awards, Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay definitely show the movies strong points. Unfortunately the acting is a little wooden and awkward at times, but is forgivable.

Luckily this movie has great bonus features including my favorite, audio commentary with Gus Van Sant, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Also included are 11 deleted scenes with audio commentary, production featurette, and "Miss Misery" music video. In other words this DVD is loaded.

Overall, with all the bonus material and sophisticated story this is definitely a great rental. If on the other hand, you are huge fans of Ben and Matt, and have already seen it and loved the movie, then it really is a no-brainer, just buy it.

Rating:
Summary: The movie said its piece in the first 1/2 hour
Review: Everyone kept telling me how great this film was and that I HAD to see it. But after seeing it I walked away thinking was that it. There is nothing more. The film is very slow and drawn out, trying to make the small plot seem bigger. The script is so poor. The dialoge sounds written, it feels worked out. It rarely sounds natural. Which is a huge pity, because the idea is very interesting. A lower class boy genius and only one man that can really seem to help him. There was so much room to develope and expand the idea. Yet it never really does so. Robin Williams was brilliant, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck had moments of brilliance. Affleck moreso. There are some moments where real emotion is shown and it draws us in. But the movie always seem to lose that connection. Not all the characters were expanded like they could have been.

This movie is good, but it could have been great. A rent rather than buy.

Rating:
Summary: Best Coming of Age Story
Review: To anyone who has ever felt down, left out, or that they don't belong, this movie is ideal. With Matt Damon being a problemistic genius dealing with his brilliance and his troubled childhood this movie addresses a lot of aspects of youths today. From rowdiness, to hanging out with friends, to moments of solitude and sometimes just aimlessly driving around, this movie defines our restless generation and shows that we are not just a bunch of MTV freaks who can be classified as a pop culture generation ignorant of anything going on around us. Coming from the particular age group of the characters in the movie (college years), I completely relate to the characters in the movie- their quest for self, for love and for life.

Rating:
Summary: Better then expected!
Review: When I first picked up this movie at our local blockbuster store I had very grave reservations, i.e., I thought that this movie, i.e., Good Will Hunting VHS~ Robin Williams would be total chick flick (a movie that is high on romance, deep seated problems and definitely a tear jerker). A movie that is chick flick is a movie that has all that mushy and romantic stuff that women like and want in a movie. However, what I found was an interesting and thought worthy movie that deals with facing past problems and solving them through psychotherapy. Robin Williams is awesome in his depiction of the psychologist and this role does not seem to be phony or forced; Ben Affleck and Mat Damon also do commendable job in their roles and one can see why people in general see them as the future of Hollywood.

Rating:
Summary: Can't get enough of this movie
Review: Even though it is not an action pack movie or any of that, I find that I can watch this movie over and over again. It has become a ritual for me to watch this movie while I'm cramming for exams or have a huge test being thrown at me by a professor. It makes you wonder how many people are actually like Will Hunting.

Rating:
Summary: What's The Problem?
Review: Some of the negative reviews posted here seem to have neglected an important element of the film: guys who live in the slums of south Boston actuall DO say the F-word as often as it's employed in this movie. Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves. I can understand if people are offended by it, but it's a realistic portrayal of these types of kids and their lifestyles. Personally, I thought the movie was very well done - but not perfect (it's only Hollywood, after all) - and that both Damon and Affleck gave credible performaces. Any movie that's as universally praised as this one will always receive a certain amount of backlash, but in this case I don't think it's warranted. It's an entertaining 2 hours, unless you're a Rambo/Terminator fan, and delivers a feel-good (if predictable) ending. With all the crap out there, you could certainly do a whole lot worse than Good Will Hunting.

Rating:
Summary: Whats with all the F-words?
Review: This movie is funny, creative, although a little unbeliavable. My only real complaint, however, is the swearing. A little swearing in a movie is almost...necessary, but come on, even if these guys are blue collar, all the f-this and f-that makes them sound like stupid little hoodlums with nothing to say, which clearly, they're not. I suppose I would have been inclined to rate it 4 or 5 stars had I not counted 253 incidences of the f-word in the 2 hour span.

Rating:
Summary: Sizzling Damon
Review: Good Will Hunting is a GREAT movie. Matt Damon is absolutely gorgeous and the movie is funny. They are humorous yet serious at times. It shows the time of a troubled kid! I would recommend this movie to EVERYONE!!!

Rating:
Summary: Fairy Tales Can Come True
Review: An MIT math professor (Skarsgård) writes an especially difficult problem on a blackboard for his whiz-kid students to solve. No one can figure it out. A young janitor (Damon) reads the problem while mopping the floor after class, cogitates over it briefly and then anonymously chalks in the answer. The professor then puts up a second, even tougher problem. Barely scrunching his brow, the janitor gets it right again.

The kid, it turns out, is a genius, right up there with Einstein. Named Will Hunting, he has a gift for mathematics that never stops giving. So how come Hunting is a janitor? It seems that he's an orphan who spent his formative years in abusive foster homes, has a chip as big as a house on his shoulder and a lengthy juvenile arrest record.

With the help of an understanding therapist (Williams) and a loving girlfriend (Driver) who's studying premed at Harvard, Hunting has the chance to put his troubled past behind him and embrace his genius. Will he? Does 2+2=4?

It's part of the essential dishonesty of this movie that it so lopsidedly stacks the deck in favor of its hero. If he can just let Williams share his pain, and if he can conquer his tendency to start fights, he'll have the Pentagon and the Rand Corp. kissing his feet.

Damon (who wrote the moving script with costar Affleck) made sure it doesn't take a genius to see that Good Will Hunting adds up to a feel-good fairy tale meshed with a realistic, compelling drama.