TJMurf Reviews

Final Approach (2005 Video)

Fun for kids & good for adults too.

[8/10 · 22 March 2006]

This film is titled "Junior Pilot" here on IMDb but "Final Approach" at Netflix. Go figure! The movie is a delight for both the target youth audience and for adults who can suspend their maturity long enough to watch this film through the eyes of their own youth. For the adult, the story is quite predictable, and perhaps trite and melodramatic; whereas the tale may seem new and creative to youngsters who have not yet seen or read many films or books with such a story line.

In any case, credit must be given to the film's creators, particularly the director James Becket and the cinematographer Denis Maloney, for making this most entertaining and visually interesting film. The cut-aways to the young protagonist Ricky's fantasy thoughts are hilarious as well as delightfully filmed.

The young actors give uniformly believable performances, seemingly quite invested in their roles--silly as many scenes are. Jordan Garrett plays the protagonist "Ricky" with quite well, having excellent camera presence. Jeffrey Tedmori creates a delightfully soft and sensitive "Shashi" who of all ridiculous things thrives on hot sauce. Skyler Samuels and Adam Cagley give solid performances as well.

As is typical of his always fine acting, Larry Miller creates a solid parental figure around which the children's part-real, part-fantasy world revolves. Compared to his father-figure, the other major adult roles appear to be shallow and one-dimensional, intentionally and quite humorously so, to be sure.

This movie is a simplistic youth-targeted story, of course, yet it is quite entertaining, perhaps repeatedly so to the targeted youth crowd, but also for at least one viewing by adults who retain the ability to view such a film from their once-youthful perspective.

Domestic Disturbance (2001)

Admirable acting but poor writing/directing.

[5/10 · 19 April 2002]

Recommend watching this movie to see the fine acting by young Matt O'Leary and by Vince Vaughn. John Travolta, Teri Polo & Steve Buscemi convey their characters quite well too. But the script and directing yield a story that is predictable without sufficient character development and interaction between characters to offset the predictability.

This is a "nice" rendition of an obvious plot. Although some of the acting is superb, it leaves one dissatisfied because the character's are so shallowly developed. The writers & director failed to convey truly unique and memorable characters; seeming, rather, to rely much too heavily upon each viewer's own conception of the characters beliefs, feelings and motivations.

In the commentary accompanying Deleted Scenes in the Special Features portion of the DVD, the director Harold Becker comments that he left out substantial materials in favor of maintaining tension. Big mistake, because the supposed tension in the final product is undermined greatly by the lack of portrayal on screen of sufficient detail about each character and the interaction between the various characters. If this were a relatively unique story plot, perhaps the quick pacing for tension would have worked, but with such an obvious and predictable plot it simply does not.

Watch it for the acting, but don't expect a great thrill.