Rating: 
Summary: "A Ron Howard Classic"
Review:
Ron Howard and Russell Crowe have finally done it. This movie surprised me from beginning to end. I would have never expected Russell Crowe to give this kind of performance. I'm glad Ron Howard has finally shown his dark side. What I really noticed about this film, thinking about the effect of emotion on eye color, was that Russell's eye color changed from green to blue in some scenes.
Ron Howard has shown me that his directing is comparable to Frances Ford Coppola's and Martin Scorsese's. The two roles that Russell Crowe played in The Insider and A Beautiful Mind completely top his Oscar winning role in Gladiator. I loved Jennifer Connely's acting in this movie and the chemistry between Russell and Jennifer was electrifying. People who've said Russell is a one note actor will have a different opinion after seeing this movie.
I think Russell Crowe's acting in this film is comparable to my favorites, Marlon Brando and Robert Deniro. I believe there has never been a method actor who has demonstrated such gifted acting as Russell Crowe in this film "A Beautiful Mind."
Russell Crowe reminds me of Deniro a lot because of the intensity and sensitive emotion's they both show when acting. Russell gives us a different picture of mental illness when he portrays this geeky, shy, arrogant Dr. Nash. I think this movie is an original movie about an original man, the brilliant genius John Forbes Nash Jr. He is trying to find his original idea and on the way he falls in love with his future wife Alicia, becomes schizophrenic, and begins his long journey to the discovery of a lifetime and what Really matters in life.
Rating: 
Summary: A Not So Beautiful Mind
Review: A Beautiful Mind, nominated for eight Academy Awards, manages to twist enough feeling out of John Nash's incredible life story to redeem an at times ludicrous portrayal of schizophrenia. Russell Crowe, who endures the role with characteristic fervor of John Nash, was known to be enthralled with Nash to the point where he even attempted to emulate his flurry of hand gestures. The Nobel prize-winning mathematician developed a groundbreaking economic theory while at Princeton, to only be topped by his appearance on the cover of Forbes magazine and to become a professor at MIT, followed by his demise brought on by his schizophrenic delusions. These delusions were portrayed in the film by means of director Ron Howard, but predictably they go astray. Nash begins to believe this "altered" world is his reality which is populated by a maniacal Department of Defense agent, played by Ed Harris, an imagined college roommate who seems right out of Dead Poet's Society, and an orphaned girl. These characters are represented so favorably that the audience begins to wonder if schizophrenia is really as slick as it is depicted. Crowe's physical intensity drags the viewer along as he works admirably to carry the film. No doubt the story of Nash's amazing will to recover his life with out the aid of medication is a worthy one, which makes his eventual triumph heartening. Unfortunately, Howard's flashy style is unable to convey much of it.
There are several important elements in Nash's very influential life that have been overlooked. For one, his most prestigious theory which was the Nash Equilibrium, which is a way of describing how people caught in a strategic decision-making situation may respond based on their assumptions about each others' behavior. Not only is this pivotal element skipped, except for in the fine print of the epilogue, casual viewers may also come away thinking that he was some sort of cross between a paranoid pseudo-code breaker gone awry, and a crazy genius who devised a mathematical approach for picking up women and then forgot all about it. A little less Hollywood depiction would have been nice but the film is still deserving of the four Academy Awards achieved in 2001 for best picture, best director (Howard), best supporting actress (Connelly), and best adapted screenplay (Goldsman). Crowe's depiction of Nash earned him an Academy Award Nomination, which is generous in my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Love is king!
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" (2001)It is hard to make a movie about mathematics interesting. I mean, I can barely sit through a math class without getting bored out of my skin. This movie is about mathematics and numbers, and it has a man I've never heard of in the lead character. A Beautiful Mind really had nothing going for it. But this movie surprised me a lot. I was thrilled to find out this was one brilliant film, and one that is surely going to knock the critics' socks off. I wasn't that interested in the film at the beginning. But as I discovered as the film went on, this is one of those movies where the boring start is essential so the movie makes sense at the end. When I watch it next time I'll remember to look closer in the first few scenes. I think this'll be one of those films where you notice something different each time. This is one of the few examples of performances driving an entire film. Russell Crowe is the head and shoulders of this film and his performance is indescribable. I can't exactly find the right word to pinpoint how brilliant he was in this film. All I can say is that he became John Nash, and delivered a career-best, and by far one of the best leading male performances of the last 20 years or more. Jennifer Connelly is superior to all the supporting actresses of 2001 and will get applause in bucketloads. It's about time she did too, the actress has been around for a few years and has never seemed to get that much recognition for her work. Ed Harris is also good, and his plot twists are shocking. Christopher Plummer is the wise-old-man of the movie (for a little while anyway) and provides much subtlety to the heart of the film. As do Connelly and Crowe, who have one of those rare chemistries and sparks on screen...it was wonderful to see them act together. The direction by Ron Howard was incredible. As I was saying before, it is extremely hard to make an interesting film about a boring mathematician, but under Howard's impeccable direction and outstanding effort, the movie works on many different levels. As it turned out, this movie is not just about a mathematician and his numbers, its about hallucinations, schizophrenia, friends, socialising, and love overcoming all of these obstacles. To write a screenplay that includes all of these things and does it in a beautiful way, ask no other man but Akiva Goldsman. He used to write silly drivel of films but the man is turning into a potential genius of the writing industry! He adapts this engrossing material with enthusiasm for making his characters 3-dimensional and I learnt a lot about the world in general in general from this film, its messages came across loud and clear, and with style. And all this is coming from the guy who wrote Practical Magic, Lost in Space and Batman & Robin. Whew! Really shows you how a guy can improve his writing skills, huh? The score and music for the film is deeply affecting to the film's atmosphere. The score is very reminiscent of Titanic, with the same sadness, the same great use of a choir, and the same rightly chosen instruments to display the film's messages and morals. The song "All Love Can Be" was very touching. James Horner is the man! This movie will hopefully be nominated, and maybe even win, a few Oscars this year. All I know is it deserves it as it by far the best overall drama I've seen in 2001. Amazing performances, incredible writing, great direction, awesome music, stunning makeup effects (wow, Russell Crowe looks 50 years older!), neat camera tricks, good sounds and moods...all of this combined make this an inspirational piece for people who like films, and more importantly, love, and life. MY GRADE: A+
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Russell Crowe Performance
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" allows the audience to experience the mental hell that is schizophrenia. This is accomplished by the sure-handed direction of Ron Howard, the clever screenplay of Akiva Goldsman, and as mathemitician John Nash, the on-target performance of Russell Crowe. Mental illness is difficult to portray on film. Rarely is it done properly and usually it results in either over-the-top portrayals or in highly mannered performances. Crowe manages to portay it with the minimum of mannerisms. To Crowe's credit, Nash is not an entirely sympathetic character here. There are also clever devises employed by Howard and Goldsman to portray schizophrenia that I will not reveal here that are quite effective. "A Beautiful Mind" also has an excellent ensemble cast. Jennifer Connelly is compelling as Nash's sympathetic wife, Alicia. Paul Bettany and Ed Harris do good work as a pair of Nash's friends. Solid support is also supplied by Josh Lucas and Adam Goldberg as Nash's colleagues as does Christopher Plummer as Nash's psychiatrist.
Rating:
Summary: The Academy Awards got it right!
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" certainly is the best picture of the year. Based on a the true story of the paranoid schizophrenic, John Nash, who went on to win a Nobel Prize, Russell Crowe took on a difficult and demanding role. Jennifer Connelly, who plays his understanding wife, won an Oscar for supporting actress and her performance was also excellent. The highest accolades, however, must go to Ron Howard who directed it and Akiva Goldsman who wrote the screenplay. They certainly deserved the awards they won and, while good actors can be found everywhere, it is that special combination of knowing just what words to say or angle to shoot a scene that made this the perfect film. It wasn't just the story, which is, in itself, awe-inspiring. It was HOW that story was told and the message it proclaimed loud and clear that made it a winner. The audience was pulled right into John Nash's mind. We saw and felt his delusions. We thought they were real. And we were right there with him as he gradually came to realize that they were just a product of his mind. Then, as story developed, we learned a valuable lesson, one that relates to all of us whether we admit it or not. If it is possible for Mr. Nash to live with his demons and go on and make a valuable contribution to society, then all of us can learn to live with ours. This theme rang true as I watched the film, and will live with me long after. It's a beautiful concept and "The Beautiful Mind" is a winner on all counts. I give this film my highest recommendation. Don't miss it!
Rating: 
Summary: Great Performances in an Otherwise Safe Film
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" has been the subject of much pre-Oscar controversy; some of the charges against this film are more valid than others. Critics have been coming out of the woodwork and accusing director Ron Howard of dodging some throny issues in his film biography of math wizard John Nash (accusations have ranged from Nash's alleged homosexuality to even anti-semitism). In addition, the casting of Jennifer Connelly as Nash's long suffering wife has provoked the wrath of some in the Latino community (Nash's wife is really from El Salvador). Regardless of the above, "A Beautiful Mind" is a good film on its own terms. Russell Crowe gives a powerhouse performance as the professor suffering with scizophrenia. This must have been a tricky role to play, but Crowe pulls it off without faking a single move. Jennifer Connelly was better in the far edgier "Requiem for a Dream," but she shines in her role as the long-suffering wife. Howard competently directs the film with feeling and at a reasonable pace, although the spotlight really belongs to Crowe. I wouldn't look to this film for hard facts on Nash, but nonetheless I recommend it on the strength of the film's stellar performances.
Rating: 
Summary: Artificiality disguised as profundity
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" has received so many awards and great reviews that I held
out what I thought was a reasonable possibility that this was a film worth
seeing -- especially since most reviews have suggested it is Opie's best
work since "Apollo 13." If I sound snide saying Opie, I have no regrets because this is a movie made
by that little boy who sees the world only in simple television terms. ABM,
which is so God awful much of the way through it's almost staggering, has
put me in an absolute rage -- not only because of IT but because I simply
can't come to grips that we now exist in a culture that embraces this goopy
treacle as serious art. The Directors Guild of America, in a bit of a
surprise, nominated only one American director for its annual award this
year and left out Robert Altman ("Gosford Park") and David Lynch
("Mulholland Drove") and Todd Fields ("In the Bedroom") and Terry Zwigoff
(Ghost World"). But Ron Howard was the man. I want to run someplace -- maybe
back to the 70s -- but I don't know how to get there. From what I understand, the book about John Nash's life on which this
picture is based, is pretty interesting and well-written. Howard and
screenwriter Akiva Goldsmith (who miraculously won a Golden Globe ) have
exorcised every complexity and dark reality from the written work; no longer
does Nash have a penchant for same-sex relationships, and no longer does
Nash's illness make him see aliens or have other fantasies that would have
blown the reality of his "illness'' right out of the water. That's right, Howard and company use Nash's illness to manipulate the
audience in one of the more hollow and insulting screen gimmicks I've ever
seen. (SPOILER FOLLOWS if you're planning to see ABM): For the first third of the movie (or was it a third of a day), Nash's
hallucinations are played straight so we don't realize some of the regular
characters in the film are figments of his diseased mind. That may have
worked well in "The Matrix" if you like that sort of thing, but it's simply
preposterous and offensive here. After seeing "Vanilla Sky,'' which I
intensely disliked, I realized we now have a new film genre on our hands
called MINDBENT. The worst uses of the genre spend time pulling the ground
out from under the audience in the name of serious art; in reality, the
gimmick often is used to disguise the complete Enron-like bankruptcy of any
serious ideas or artistic vision. The worst of the television-actors-turned-directors share a simple-minded,
reductive way of handling any kind of complex or dark material. In Penny
Marshall's "A League of Their Own," I wince at the scene where the Geena
Davis character is in the locker room, fearing that her husband will be
injured or killed in the War. In comes a war flunky to hand over a note to
some unlucky woman-soon-to-be-widow about the death of her husband.
Marshall's only way of portraying that moment is to artificially build
suspense by playing with the audience's expectations: the moment comes down
to whether it is Davis's husband who will soon be 10-feet under. In other
words, the only thing on Marshall's mind is jolting the audience -- making
them sweat in the name of dramatic impact. It doesn't matter that SOME woman
will feel unimaginable grief in a few minutes: Just as long as it isn't our
star. The scene doesn't have anything to say about the war or death in the
military. It's there to spice up the movie, to jack up the drama, without
any organic connection to anything real. It's a television moment of the
worst kind. Which leads me back to ABM. Not only is the gimmick used for the first third
of the film and not very well, may I add, but there's a quieter moment at
the end of the film that is a window to the movie's sorry soul. Nash is
older now and on his way to recovery. He hangs out at the Princeton Library
doing his work quietly, trying to ignore the regular figments of his
imagination that intrude on his mind from time to time. In comes a student
asking about Nash and whether he's the same Nash who did such great work a
million years ago, etc. etc. No one else is in the library, of course, so
that the scene can play as the most demeaning kind of contrivance. The movie
is playing with us the same way Marshall played with us in "A League of
Their Own"; the way it's filmed is intended to make us wonder whether this
character is another figment of Nash's imagination. And, of course, we get
the predictable payoff a moment later when his teary-eyed wife comes to the
library and sees him working productively with the kid and other kids at a
desk. It's real by God -- it's real! Start the Rocky music or in this case,
the overbearing, loud, unwelcome James Horner "Field of Dreams"-like score. Howard here has no interest in rendering Nash's life or expressing an
organic vision about mental illness or doing anything other than taking
audiences on an artificial ride and then trying to tear emotions from their
hearts. It's so stiflingly hollow that the first impulse is to scream from
your seat. Russell Crowe can be a great actor, and there's all kinds of talk about him
winning a consecutive Oscar this year. He's given nothing to play here
really, and this is not close to one of his best performances. (Don't even
mention it in the same breath with the work he did in "The Insider.") He's
all tics and lopsided walks and he gets to age 50 or so years so he meets
Oscar's stringent requirements in every way. He has a sort of Gumpian and
Rain Man innocence even when he's "playing" arrogant and nasty at the
beginning of the film. You just can't help but sort of love him even when
he's an ass. At all times, Howard and Crowe make sure his darkest traits
never play too dark; he's artificial and a television conception from the
moment we meet him. Nash's courtship with his future wife is poorly written
and often gooey so there is little chemistry that ever ensues in the early
scenes of them getting to know each other. Which makes Jennifer Connelly's performance even more remarkable. Somehow,
somewhere along the way, Connelly makes the pain of dealing with a
non-functional husband feel real and significant. Against all odds, against
a screenplay that doesn't give her almost anything at all, against a
director whose every impulse is toward safety and artificiality, Connelly
breaks through in terrific ways. She's the best thing about the movie --
hands down -- and a star in the making. Given the crap she must wade
through, the performance is nothing short of amazing. But Howard and company make sure the film has everything going against it
for anyone with taste. Predictably, the movie ends with Nash winning the
Nobel Prize and delivering a TV-movie-of-the-week speech intended to pull
at the heartstrings. It violates every "reality" we have come to know about
the character. That's how bad TV-actors-turned-directors operate: At a
climatic scene, they let their heroes say or do anything to get an unsubtle
audience effect even if it cuts completely against the character we've --
ahem -- come to know. I've gone on long enough. (I know, too long). Maybe I'm the one who has the
diseased mind. But at the risk of sounding arrogant and elitist, I am
dumbfounded by the idea that people believe this pre-fabricated Oscar junk
is a great movie or anything remotely better than what can be found on bad
cable television day in and day out. That there is a school of thought out
there (and a lot of award hardware) indicating this is cinema to be taken
seriously leaves me very dejected to say the least. Mike Isaacs
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful (and Brilliant) Movie!
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" is a cinematic triumph for director Ron Howard, lead actor Russell Crowe and every member of the cast and crew that made this gem! In the film we are introduced to the character of John Nash, a brilliant, yet reclusive mathematician. The viewer begins to see the world from the perspective of the mathematical genius. We follow him through his schooling to Princeton and later MIT. There is an intriguing subplot that begins to emerge. I will not reveal it to you, but I will say that it is very well, and suspensefully developed by director Howard and acted by Crowe and the ensemble cast. It will shock you, but you will cheer on Nash as he triumphs in the midst of incredible adversity and learns ultimately that love is all that really matters. This is a profound story of an exceptional human being overcoming tremendous challenges, and it is Ron Howard's BEST film yet! The soundtrack by Howard Shore is great as well, featuring the soaring, angelic voice of Charlotte Church. This is one of the best films of the year without a doubt!
Rating:
Summary: A numbers game...
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" is a truly inspirational film... that really shouldn't work at all! Look at the subject matter: a withdrawn, socially inept mathematical genius comes up with a "Big Idea," has a nervous breakdown, wins a Nobel Prize, and lives happily ever after! (Not the usual mindless "blockbuster" fodder that fills the multiplexes!) Okay, so that's a rather trite summing up of the film, but the story of John Forbes Nash is an inspiration in itself, and this filmed version, as opposed to the book, which I have not as yet read, has an immediacy that grabs you and immerses you in the troubled mind of our, ultimately, likeable and sympathetic hero. Nash didn't have a nervous breakdown per-se, but suffered from schizophrenia for most of his adult life. Not wishing to spoil the film for you if you haven't seen it already, all I will say is that Nash saw and experienced people and situations that were pure figments of his imagination, driven by the secrecy and paranoia of a McCarthy era Reds-under-the-Bed state of mind, Nash became unable to distinguish fantasy from reality. Nash's moment of revelation, his epiphany, came when he almost hurt his wife and child. From that moment on he became 'self-aware' in a way that few people, I suspect, are capable of, he 'reasoned' that he was 'mad' and simply chose ignore the product of his madness, his visions and hallucinations. They remained with him, and as far as I know still do, but through shear force of will, he controlled them and integrated them into his everyday existence. They no longer had any power over him; he was, and is, in control of his life. His Nobel Prize came about when a later generation of economists and analysts rediscovered his "Big Idea," and he was finally given the recognition that was long overdue. Without us knowing it, Nash's theories and equations touch us all as we live in a free-market economy. "A Beautiful Mind" is a beautifully made film that I can't recommend highly enough. The difficult mathematical aspect of the film is handled in such a way as to make it immediately accessible to a non-Nash genius, and shouldn't put you off. Nash's life is truly inspirational, and this film should be seen by all, it shows how one man can overcome so much personal adversity, and still contribute so much to his family and friends, and ultimately to us all.
Rating:
Summary: STRANGE-BUT-TRUE!!! A WELL-MADE DRAMA!!!
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" is a well made drama chronicling events in the life of John Nash, a genius with schitzophrenia. I particularly thought that his willingness to fight this disease without medication or shock therapy (after several failed attempts to do so) was really stupid, but it proved to work out just fine! All the actors give fine performances in this film (even those who play the "imaginations" are good). A good, solid film! Grade: A-
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