"Second chances are rare, man. You ought to take better advantage of them."
Half Nelson is a movie about Dan Dunne, a school teacher played by Ryan Gosling, who teaches a class mostly consisting of black and hispanic children in an inner city school. He midnights as a party animal/drug addict, and this abuse is really weighting him down in life. Teaching is the only thing about his life that he enjoys, and seeing the faces of the young boys and girls in class is what makes him get out of bed in the morning. He's got a very distant relationship to his family, and he always seems to feel awkward when he's around them. He teaches history, and coaches for the girls' basketball team. One day one of the girls, Drey, played by Shareeka Epps, catches him smoking a joint in a bathroom, and the two strike up an unlikely friendship that becomes the main theme of the movie.
First of all, the performances by the lead actors are great. Gosling got nominated for an academy award for his portrayal of Dan Dunne, and Anthony Mackie and Shareeka Epps both did a great job as well. Anthony's character Frank, the local drug dealer, has some really funny moments, and Shareeka does an awesome job at playing a young girl who hasn't quite figured out what her purpose in life is, and as a result gets introduced to selling drugs by Frank.
The thing i find most interesting about this movie is the way Dan and Drey get to depend on each other to sort out their individual problems. The two know that they aren't capable of changing their own lives, however they can at least make an effort to help out each other. This chemistry is what made the movie enjoyable to me. At one point near the end, there is a great scene where both their worlds get merged together in what I believe to be the peak of the movie, and the way the two look at each other thinking "Yea man, life sucks!" combined with the music playing in the background just made me go "Wow, this is awesome!", because you just feel so connected to the two characters.
Half Nelson is a sad movie to watch, because you get to see how miserable, lost and lonely some people feel. Good things never happen to any of the main characters, even the end kinda made me feel sad, even though it left me with a little hope that things might get better for the two. This sad tone is sure to scare some people off, even though it never gets depressive or boring to watch. One of the reasons why you never truly loose hope for Gosling and Epps is the great music that is playing in the background. In some way it's encouraging and at the same time sad to listen to, but all in all it sends off the message that things can always get better. It's hard to explain, but the tunes playing in the background when Gosling hits his lowest lows really are something special.
The movie also touches on the concept of change. Dan is teaching his students about how things have changed over the cause of time and about life and what we make of it. At one point he says: "Second chances are rare, man. You ought to take better advantage of them.", and this quote really struck home with me, because the broken man speaking them knows exactly what he's talking about. All he wishes for is an opportunity to turn his life around, and he does his very best to save his students from ending up in a situation as cruel as his own.
As good as it is, I do have a few gripes about Half Nelson. For an example, the main theme of the movie, as I described earlier, is both the main chracters' shared desire to help each other on to the right paths in life. Because of this, Dan confronts Frank, who is introducing Drey to the drug business, in an attempt to stop him from dragging her into something he knows from personal experience is really bad. Now, I don't know about you, but telling a drug lord what to do kinda sounds dangerous to me, and I half way expected Dan to get killed at this point. But it doesn't happen. In fact, nothing happens. The two walk into Franks house to discuss the matter, and the scene ends. And that's it. You don't get any hints as to what the two talked about, nothing seems to change after their talk, all it really did was making Frank look like a weak drug dealer, because he just let Dan tell him what to do. This is really what bothers me the most about the movie; the lack of authority from Franks character, and the lack of follow up on his and Dans confrontation. Franks character was well acted and funny as well, but i just feel like he was misused and could have been much better, had he been more frightening and respectable.
All in all, i thought Half Nelson was an exiting, intriguing and well acted movie that kept me emotionally invested from start to finish. Rating the movie is really hard, but when i think about it, i have to say that i probably wouldn't pay full price to re-watch it. Therefore Half Nelson "only" gets my seal of approval. (4/6)
Half Nelson IMDb page here
Half Nelson trailer here
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