Joe Bell

This is one of those movies that deals with an important subject matter. Something that everyone involved with can pat themselves on the back and brag about how awesome they are for being a part of it. It's got award bait written all over it. But it's just not that great. The plot device where Marky Mark talks to his dead kid's ghost is distracting and silly, and takes away any seriousness the film needed to be effective. The Marky Mark character comes across as buffoonish and completely unlikeable, making it difficult to care about his ordeal. This is based on a true story, and if the real-life guy wasn't that annoying, I think they did him a disservice. The rest is just paint-by-the-numbers cliched dreck. Total Lifetime Movie of the Week level stuff. There are so many "you're supposed to be sad here" moments, that it resembles the way a bad horror movie relies on cheap jump scares instead of actually being scary. Throw in a few musical interludes with Marky Mark walking down a road looking haggard and pathetic, some terse wife interaction, and a splash of him still being a dick to his other kid, and ya got a movie... I guess? The acting is fine, I blame everything on the script and direction. Marky Mark was Marky Mark, but he was fine. The actor that plays the gay kid did a good job, albeit too good perhaps. Could've dialed it down a notch, but again I blame the direction. The mom did a great job of being a mom in a movie not about the mom. The younger brother got to cry in one scene. They were all fine. Gary Sinise as the sheriff was pretty damn great. The problem with this movie is that the people who actually need to see it will either never watch it, or make fun of it if they do. This movie will not change any hearts or minds. It's only gonna stroke the egos of the producers into thinking they did something good and important. The sad truth of the matter is that they might actually have been able to do that, IF they were more interested in the craft of effective film making, and less interested in getting back-pats from their soulless peers at parties. I lost a friend to suicide due to bullying, and this movie is an insult to his memory. I wanted to like this movie. I wanted it to be important. I wanted it to inspire. I didn't like it. It wasn't important. It disappointed.

The story is beautiful. The ending is truly touching. I enjoyed watching it.

I'm puzzled as to why Mark Wahlberg (and a lot of other very talented people, including screenwriters Mary McMurtry and Diana Ossona) thought the story of Joe and Jadin Bell deserved its own movie. If you know what happened to the real-life father and son, you'll know what I mean. (No spoilers.) The ending has zero sense of feel-good moral uplift--no matter how contrived it might have played--because the "true story" makes that impossible. It just feels...kind of pathetic and deeply sad. There's one good scene in the entire movie, and it's a heart-to-heart talk between Wahlberg and Gary Sinise as a sympathetic cop who picks him up on the side of the road and gives him a hot meal. The rest, sad to say, is a well-intentioned big-screen After School Special that fails on nearly every conceivable level.

This is a very well done movie with a great message about a real person that was trying to make a change in the world. If you watch it you'll experience some serious emotions and one of the parts is so well done you'll be blown away.