Customer Reviews

Jack

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Channel-surfing on cable, I came across "Jack". Was very touched by the story and the acting by all the players. Stockard Channing is always consistent....she never fails in a performance. Ron Silver is a familiar name to me, but to watch him in this role, playing Dad, and a gay Dad at that, and the way he approached his life changes as it related to his son...understandable. He is a consummate performer. BUT..having read other reviews about Anton Yeltsin's performance as Jack being bland, or otherwise understated, I must disagree...This boy played an adolescent boy, coming of age, to the hilt...the dialogue and narration by him was touching. I'm no film critic, but I liked this film enough to sit down at the puter and find out more about it, and the opportunity to express my thoughts...GREAT little film, story...acting by ALL was great....it was, in a word, entertainment! And that's what it's all about. Thank you, cast (and crew) for Jack!

Jack is a fifteen year-old boy dealing with the difficult navigation through adolescence. To further complicate his life his parents divorce because his father is gay. Jack's once secure world is turned upside down.

The movie has a well-written script and good performances from the excellent cast. Veteran actors Stockard Channing and Ron Silver play the parents. Jack is played by Anton Yeltsin, who was actually only thirteen when the movie was made. His sensitive performance in the title role is what really makes the story work.

Though nothing profound, this is an offbeat and better than average coming of age story.

Jack is a comedic drama that makes light work of dealing with teens facing complex issues in their lives. In that it makes light work of these issues is the movie's main flaw. Jack is a teen struggling with his own identity while dealing with his parent's sudden split, and then finding out dad is gay. His best friend seems (to Jack) to have a perfect suburban family right out of a modern day family sitcom, but all is far from right under their roof with parents who verbally fight all the time, occasionally ending in blows by one or the other. jack's newfound girlfriend has issues of her own.... popularity and constantly in fear of everyone finding out that her dad too, has come out of the closet. So how does the writing of the movie handle all of this luggage? with teen sarsastic wit and cynicism of course, and that's fine, but at times it feels overblown and forced. No teen, no matter how smart, has the guts to blast out every thought and concern in harmonious satire; even sitcoms have toned down that instinct to make their characters flawless in delivery, and yet, here it is overly prevalent. Still, Jack is often a bittersweet story of learning for the characters and the end does offer up hope, though thankfully, doesn't wrap it all up with a tiny bow and present to us a finished product all sunny and 100% happy. The movie makers instead presented us with a look of a batch of lives constantly in transition from the many lessons we (and these characters) are meant to learn each day. 3.75 stars

I have to admit i was expecting a lot more form this movie, and its preformers. The acting was not as great as other preformances i have seen these actors in, and the story line was not portrayed very well in my opinion. It is something to watch on a very rainy sunday.

There were some good ideas here and some good acting. Channing does her usual fine work and Silver manages to avoid being too sensitive. The whole film really depends on the character of Jack and I'm afraid Anton Yelchin can't pull it off. He has a strangely disconnected affect, almost as if he were practicing for a self-deprecating stand-up routine about his kooky family. His pain never becomes believable and so the piece mostly moves by and you wind up observing it, but no more than that.

JACK is a good film: the story is sound (although strangely naive in today's informed youth culture), the topic is timely, the acting by Stockard Channing and Ron Silver is excellent, but the total impact fails because of the consistently flat performance by Anton Yelchin as the lead character Jack.

Anne (Stockard Channing) and Paul (Ron Silver) are divorcing in a primarily civilized way. The reason for the dissolution of this previously happy family unit is kept secret from 15 year old Jack (Anton Yelchin) who has to find out from his high school friends in a rather demeaning way that his father is gay and has a gay lover. Despite Paul's attempts to maintain an amicable relationship with Anne and his children he is unable to accept his own sexuality to the extent that he attempts to closet his true persona. Once through that phase he encourages Jack to be with him and his lover Bob (Paul McGillian) but nothing assuages Jack's resentment of his father's "deserting" him and his mother.

Jack's refuge is in his friend Max Burka (Giacomo Baessato) and in the girl Jack desires - Maggie (Brittany Irvin)- whose father is openly gay and just happens to be good friends with Jack's father. The manner in which Anne, Paul, and Jack come to terms with the new life that impacts them all is the point of the story. And it is to the writer's credit that the ending is not simply pat.

Stockard Channing finds just the right amount of compassion and rage in her role of the mother who must cope with the changes in her happy life and Ron Silver manages to avoid all the tired mannerisms that usually befall the 'new gay dad' role. Anton Yelchin is a good young actor: he simply is not credible in a role that invites credibility. Grady Harp, December 2004

One characteristic of these progay movies that I cannot stand is that they seem to always have to try to destroy some established social institution, such as the Church or marriage, to make the gayness seem okay. In this case, they show Jack's best friend's family to be a violent, dysfunctional family while Jack's mother and father who has chosen to become homosexual to be loving and supportive. But then, to show the love and emotional sustenance of the typical family would make Jack's seem to be even more dysfunctional. Also, the girl named Maggie is shown to have a homosexual dad and it doesn't seem to bother her much at all, even when he kisses his 'boyfriend' in public; apparently she has come to terms with it and the social ramifications for her as a child. To Jack's credit, he seems to come to terms with his father's homosexuality without trying to defend it. From a traditional values standpoint, this movie is a failure. Nobody takes a stand on the immorality of homosexual BEHAVIOR. The only reason I didn't give it an 'F' rating is that it does show the problems selfish parents cause their children by any immoral or contra-social practice when it becomes public.