The Mighty (1998)

Waste of time

Such a frustrating disappointment

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Maxwell Kane (Elden Henson) is a quiet giant kid in Cincinnati living with his grandparents (Harry Dean Stanton, Gena Rowlands). He fears the return of his imprisoned killer father (James Gandolfini). He is hounded by classmate Blade and his Doghouse Boys. Kevin Dillon (Kieran Culkin) is his cripple next door neighbor with his mother (Sharon Stone). Blade bowls Kevin over and blames it on Max. Max gets detention and Kevin starts tutoring him. They become friends imagining themselves as a Knight in King Arthur's Roundtable as Freak the Mighty.The movie starts off poorly with the school bullies. They are very much two dimensional cartoons and played by weak kid actors. Elden is basically silent except for his narration. Kieran Culkin does a good job with a nice performance and has nice chemistry with Elden. The movie starts off weakly. Then the kid bullies take a backseat and Gandolfini makes a surprise appearance. He shocks the movie into another gear despite the odd accent from Gillian Anderson and the outlandish journey of Kevin. This is hardcore sentimental. I like the idea but the execution isn't the best.

It was a mere accident that I saw this movie. I was just flipping through the channels and just happen to stop at Star Movies. It was the scene where Kevin is introduced as a tutor to Max. I don't know what was it, but I bought the DVD of this movie next day.Kieran is has done an excellent job as a handicap boy. I sincerely feel that he is the one who is actually the sole of the movie. Sharon stone is perfect as a mother. Frankly I was not so impressed by Elden Henson as Max in the first half of the movie. But during the later part of the movie I realized that the movie was actually not focusing on him in the first half. He actually takes all the credit away in the last scene where he runs after the Ambulance and reaches that "medical center" about which Kevin lied. A lot of credit goes to the music of the film, which is the essence of the movie. I usually don't watch drama, but after American Beauty, this is the best I have seen.

In the mid 1990s, a streak of coming-of-age flicks were released, each trying to emulate the tone and style of Rob Reiner's "Stand by me" (1986). And so "Stand by Me" led to the TV series "The Wonder Years" (1988), which led to Woody Allen's "Radio Days", "Brighton Beach Memoirs", "Radio Flyer" (1992), "Man in the Moon" (1991), "Jack the Bear" (1993), "This Boys Life" (1993), "King of the Hill", "Now and Then" (1995), "Unsung Heroes" (1995), "The Mighty" (1998), "Simon Birch" (1998) etc etc.These films all employed a rich and romantic visual style which recalled the paintings of Norman Rockwell. They featured older and wiser narrators who reminisced about their childhood days, revolved around small groups of young boys, largely took place in the 60s and early 70s, and oozed a sense of nostalgia.Significantly, all these films also yearned for escape. These kids (or rather their future adult selves) are all searching for a romanticised version of Americana. A forgotten, or perhaps nonexistent, age of white picket fences, carefree wandering, pop sodas and family dinners. Behind all this comfortable nostalgia, though, is a sense of menace. Abuse, suicide, murder, the lingering effects of the Vietnam war and drunken fathers, all linger in the background.Covertly, these films are also implicitly about how early circumstances influence a person's later identity. They're all told from the point of view of an adult, looking back at his past life.This trend started in the 80, by artists who were born post WW2 and became young men in the mid 60s. By the late 90s the "unseen enemy" of these films stopped being about war, poverty, absent fathers, abuse and alcoholism, and started to be about disease and genetic disorders. The idealised Norman Rockwell version of Americana was still there, but now Generation X seemed to obsess over diseases and genetics. For Generation X, misery seemed to be all about ailments and genetic predisposition, like the kids with Morquio's syndrome in "The Mighty" and "Simon Birch" or AIDS in "The Cure". "Stand by Me"- 8/10, "The Mighty"- 7.9/10, "Simon Birch"- 7/10, "The Cure"- 5/10, "Radio Flyer"- 4/10, "Jack the Bear"- 7.5/10, "This boys life"- 8/10, "Now and then"- 3/10, "Man in the moon"- 7.5/10I think these films are interesting if you treat them as a single batch. Stuff like "Radio Flyer" and "Now and Then" have that whole kitschy Spielberg vibe. They're pretty worthless. The Tom Hanks cheesefest "Radio Flyer" and the Rosie O Donnell travesty "Now and Then" are pretty terrible. "The Mighty's" somewhere in the middle.

Two outcasts find friendship and a way out of their difficult lives in 1998's "The Mighty."A young lad with a physical problem befriends a learning disabled young man whose mother was killed by an insane father. They live through the book of King Arthur and the knights of the round table.This book enables them to win out over a gang of school bullies and rescue the learning disabled youth when his father suddenly reappears and kidnap him.When our sickly youth succumbs at the end, his friend is able to go on and write a book.This is a warm story that carries us through adversity.Nice to see that Sharon Stone sacrifices her usual sexy roles to portray the mother of the ill youth.