The Contender (2000)
The Contender is a work of art, a story where the director of the movie is on the driving seat and Rod Lurie, a budding name ten years ago, has shown his hard work in this movie by revealing characters in a layer-by-layer approach. I can't remember watching such a thrilling drama or such a dramatic thriller in recent times. The movie urged me to think, when a movie is described thriller? When there is some fast paced action? When the viewers constantly crave for what happens next?
What happened while watching 'The Contender' was getting that repeated feeling of 'why'? The characters in the beginning are shown just like onions with their skin on. As the movie proceeds, we can see the peeling of their covers and their true identity being revealed. I understood, an intriguing drama is a thriller. In the beginning of the movie, I felt that I have an understanding of the suspense but then that was just a small piece of the pie. Overall, the character development process is remarkable. Most of the human beings, learned, educated and professionals are complex in nature, in terms of their behavior, in terms of how they overall carry themselves. I don't think that we can draw a few lines and then relate them to any human nature. Say, this line represents this person and that line, that person and so on. People are far more diverse on their surface as compared to what they are beneath them. I suppose most of us do reach to a point where we start believing in something and stick to it. Perhaps, the path beyond that point becomes clear, even if not easy to tread upon. But for those who constantly doubt, the future is shaky, risky.
I suppose, the director has tried to show some clear traits on principles, loyalty, hypocrisy and other behavior in this film. Joan Allen, if is shown firm along with Gary Oldman then Jeff Bridges is way vibrant. I have seen three movies out of the six directed by Rod Lurie and I find all of them as a measure to dig deep in the abilities of different people, given a test of time and situation and perhaps not far from common man's perspective, too. Among these three, The Contender is so far, the best.
My rating: 7.2/10
What happened while watching 'The Contender' was getting that repeated feeling of 'why'? The characters in the beginning are shown just like onions with their skin on. As the movie proceeds, we can see the peeling of their covers and their true identity being revealed. I understood, an intriguing drama is a thriller. In the beginning of the movie, I felt that I have an understanding of the suspense but then that was just a small piece of the pie. Overall, the character development process is remarkable. Most of the human beings, learned, educated and professionals are complex in nature, in terms of their behavior, in terms of how they overall carry themselves. I don't think that we can draw a few lines and then relate them to any human nature. Say, this line represents this person and that line, that person and so on. People are far more diverse on their surface as compared to what they are beneath them. I suppose most of us do reach to a point where we start believing in something and stick to it. Perhaps, the path beyond that point becomes clear, even if not easy to tread upon. But for those who constantly doubt, the future is shaky, risky.
I suppose, the director has tried to show some clear traits on principles, loyalty, hypocrisy and other behavior in this film. Joan Allen, if is shown firm along with Gary Oldman then Jeff Bridges is way vibrant. I have seen three movies out of the six directed by Rod Lurie and I find all of them as a measure to dig deep in the abilities of different people, given a test of time and situation and perhaps not far from common man's perspective, too. Among these three, The Contender is so far, the best.
My rating: 7.2/10
Labels: Drama, Gary Oldman, Jeff Bridges, Joan Allen, Rod Lurie, Thriller
posted by Chandra Jayant at 11:02 AM
1 Comments:
Contender is by far the most taut political thriller that I’ve seen (I’ve yet to watch JFK). The USP of the film is its real world setting, its real world characters and its real world prejudices as an underlying theme that combine together to show us how shaky our system really is. The beauty of the film lies in the way the viewer is made to feel guilty of his own chauvinism, which summarizes our attitude and the way we go about our lives, in general. Acting is top notch from all quarters (even fringe players look their part). Special mention for Gary Oldman (you wont believe he’s the same guy who played the Police Commissioner in latest Batman movies), Joan Allen (if you don’t feel desperate to see her indicted, let me know), and Jeff Bridges (for getting oodles of charisma to Presidentship, much before anyone had heard of Obama).
The Contender is my pick if you want to watch some great Political Drama.
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