The Blind Side

So after what seems like weeks since the media screening and months since its US release, I've finally watched The Blind Side.

You know what? It's not vomitastic. I really was expecting the worst. By the worst I, of course, mean every other football movie you've ever seen - kid comes from the wrong side of the tracks and no one really gives him a chance until one day an unexpected encounter with an unlikely stranger sets in motion a series of events that would change the course of his life for ever and all because someone looked beyond what they saw on the outside, took a chance on him and just believed. Good god! What a long sentence and what a pile of slop. How many movies have that plot?!

Yeah yeah yeah. Call me a cynic, but to my way of thinking, the single worst thing a film can be is unoriginal.

Now don't get me wrong, Blind Side doesn't quite steer clear of all of the pitfalls of copy-cat film making, but it's certainly better than I'd expected and certainly better than most.

Cathy Bates was, as she always is, a welcome addition to the cast which was, overall very good. I'm still not sure I'm 100% comfortable that I live in a world where Sandra Bullock is an Oscar winner. Yes she's very lovely, and seems like a lot of fun; the kind of woman you could grab a beer with a have a laugh. But I think it's for these reasons that she won - the voters like her and this was as good an excuse as any to give her a gong. It's not that her performance was bad, it's very strong in fact, but Oscar worthy...? Well not in my opinion. The politics of awards season - you could speculate for the rest of your life and still never come close to understanding the way people think or act.

I think the nicest thing about this film is that it probably started its life as just one of those kids from the wrong side of the tracks. Somewhere along the way a producer or a critic got hold of it and decided to help take it to the next level. It's bigger than the sum of its parts and that really does count for a lot.

While the trailer still makes me want to throw up at the thought of seeing it again, the film itself is well worth a watch.


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3 1/2 well call me Susans.

Not worthy of an Oscar