Rather hollow effort.
Finding Forrester (2000)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:121
Fresh:89
Rotten:32
Average Rating:6.5/10
Consensus: Despite the predictability of its plot and its similarity to Good Will Hunting, Finding Forrester has an honest, solid feel to it and good rapport between Connery and Brown.
Runtime: 2 hrs 16 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Director Gus Van Sant brings to the screen this moving story of a grizzled recluse and an inner-city teenager brought together by their shared passion for writing. Like Van Sant's Oscar-nominated... Director Gus Van Sant brings to the screen this moving story of a grizzled recluse and an inner-city teenager brought together by their shared passion for writing. Like Van Sant's Oscar-nominated GOOD WILL HUNTING, FINDING FORRESTER earnestly explores the struggles of a youthful genius whose position in society (underprivileged kid from the wrong side of the tracks) makes him seem destined for failure until he forms a relationship with a gifted but introverted mentor who helps him see the light.The youthful genius is a talented urban basketball player named Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown), who in his spare time reads everything he can get his hands on, secretly scribbling prose and poetry into a composition pad. The introverted mentor is William Forrester (Sean Connery), who took the literary world by storm with his debut novel, AVALON RISING, 50 years earlier but now spends whole days shut inside his Bronx apartment looking out the window onto a basketball court where Jamal hangs out. Buoyed by excellent performances from Connery and newcomer Brown, FINDING FORRESTER paints a compelling, alluring portrait of friendship while offering intriguing insights into the heart and soul of the dedicated writer. [More]
Starring: Sean Connery, Rob Brown, Anna Paquin, F. Murray Abraham
Starring: Sean Connery, Rob Brown, Anna Paquin, F. Murray Abraham, Busta Rhymes, Michael Nouri, Tom Mullica, Lil' Zane
Director: Gus Van Sant
Director: Gus Van Sant
Screenwriter: Mike Rich
Producer: Laurence Mark, Sean Connery, Rhonda Tollefson
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Reviews for Finding Forrester
The leaden screenplay can be fingered for many of the film's faults. But what happened to the off-kilter film-maker last seen at work in To Die For?
All signs of intelligent life are sacrificed to Hollywood formula and liberal wish-fulfilment.
Over-long and underwritten drama with too many shades of Good Will Hunting.
Hollywood films have a tendency to fall apart in the final reel (due to studio pressures and those notorious audience preview comments), but we hoped Van Sant would avoid this pitfall. Alas.
Although it's familiar territory, Van Sant gives the material a new spin and the result is off-beat, low-key and guaranteed to lift spirits with its easy charm.
Finding Forrester is an easy watch with just enough of a feeling of prestige and respectability about it to please serious moviegoers.
An intelligent, subtle, in short remarkable take on growing up, being true to yourself and fighting the odds.
A movie about two writers, but it doesn't seem to have a clue about why writers write or about how writers write.
It seems that this script was put through the ‘Hollywood wringer’ far too many times – squeezing out any real sense that it might be something different.
While Finding Forrester is an average film that earns my average rating, the real disappointment is its ultimately disheartening theme that makes you wonder how it ever got made.
The problem is that viewers will have no trouble predicting most every turn along the way.
Its intentions are honorable, but its portrait of youth, urban, academic and literary culture is Mesozoic.
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