Film reviews
Men In Black 3
It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.
Bel Ami
The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.
The Dictator
A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.
The Woman In Black
Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.
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Love & Other Drugs (Film)
Rating: MA
Running Time: 112
Country: USA
Director: Edward Zwick
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway
Distributor: Fox
Release Date: December 16, 2010
Film Worth: $9.50
FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worthWhile the two leads have terrific chemistry; this is largely a predictable love story which skims over the more hard-hitting aspects.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway (Brokeback Mountain) team up once again, this time for a romantic drama set in the late nineties, during a prescription drug boom.
Jamie (Gyllenhaal) is a natural salesman. Smart, charming, and irresistible to women, he has no problems closing any kind of deal - including romantic ones. Spurred on by his overachieving family, he decides to try his luck as a drug representative for pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Given the antidepressant drug Zoloft, Jamie needs all his charms to convince the physicians to prescribe it over the competing Prozac. But Jamie hits the gold mine when he is given a new drug to spruik - the very popular Viagra pill - and soon it's the doctors who are chasing him, as demand for the magic product increases. During one of his visits to Dr. Knight (Hank Azaria), Jamie meets the beautiful Maggie (Anne Hathaway), who is suffering from early onset Parkinson's disease. The two start a casual relationship, which slowly becomes more serious.
The seedy world of a drug salesman is merely the backdrop for a love story, and that's a shame when you consider the source material upon which the film is based. Hard Sell is a controversial book by former Viagra salesman Jamie Reidy, who brought to light the dodgy deals happening behind the scenes between drug reps and doctors. A little of this is shown in Love & Other Drugs, and these scenes are the most interesting in the film. But in Hollywood, romantic stories pay the bills, so any hard hitting truths are softened with the sweet, yet predictable, central love story.
Jake Gyllenhaal has plenty of charm as Jamie, and his good looks make it easy to believe that women would fall for him. Anne Hathaway is also appealing, and the pair's sizzling chemistry is easy to see during their multiple love scenes.
