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It may be the free-spirit 60’s, but Richard (Ron Livingston) has lived
through a miserable childhood – dad’s dead, mom’s crazy, life’s tough.
The only place he shines is on the stage, delivering speeches. He’s very
good at it, even though how he personally feels about a particular topic
makes no difference to him. He wins trophies, but his apathetic attitude
keeps him from winning a scholarship – Dr. Padrow (Hector Elizondo) tells
him he needs to get a life and find his own passion. Richard opts for the
other easy way to pay for college and get some life experience while he’s
at it – he joins Uncle Sam's team and heads for Vietnam. It seemed like
a good idea, but it doesn’t work out so well when his proximity to a bomb
blast leaves him with permanent tinnitus – the ringing so loud it renders
him deaf.
Richard is so determined to go to college; he doesn’t let his disability stop him – he learns to read lips. He meets three people who will change his life – Mike (Yul Vazquez), a disabled vet with a missing leg and a huge chip on his shoulder; Art (Michael Sheen), who has been wheelchair-bound by cerebral palsy; and his girlfriend Christine (Melissa George), although it takes a while for her to realize she wants to play that part.
It eventually dawns on Richard that the "music within him" is
a song of activism – and he takes up the fight for the rights of disabled
people. It’s a battle that costs him, but this is a war he’s willing to
risk everything to win. The film is based on a true story about a grassroots
movement that eventually changes the laws of the land.
The movie is a mix of weird dark humor, awkward moments, a great soundtrack, and mass doses of melodrama. It takes a VERY long time to get to the thing that Richard is passionate about, so long that it almost feels like an afterthought. Oh by the way, all this back-story is leading up to the fact that Richard really wants to change the world, but not until his epiphany at the pancake house. This story should be inspirational, because it’s a strong message, but it just gets lost along the way.
You rarely hear us complain about a movie being overly sentimental, but
this is so overdone you’re choking on his good intentions and it isn’t
really an emotion that’s earned – especially the final "once more
unto the pancake house" scene (all that syrup and birthday cake is
too much sweet to have at a single sitting).
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