Ok, so I’m eight years late on seeing this one. It was on tv the other day and I thought, “Hey, I really like Tom Hanks. This movie is about AIDS. I’m sure it’s good.”
Whoa, that movie sucked. It was as preachy as the Left Behind movie(which I also unfortunately saw).
Seriously, I’ve never seen so many sterotyped characters in a movie before. The heads of the firm are all anti-gay people who claim to be Christians. Like I haven’t seen that a million times before! 'Cause all Christians hate homosexuals, right? They must be. The movie portrayed them this way. :rolleyes:
And Denzel Washington is the conflicted lawyer who helps his client despite his prejudices(and learns a life lesson along the way). Where did they get that brand new idea?
And Hanks is barely in it! He has some lines and yes, it’s very shocking to see how he portrays the effects of AIDS. But I wasn’t moved. The movie had such a huge agenda to push that I couldn’t be moved.
We need a really powerful AIDS movie. I had always thought this was it. It wasn’t. The story of Ryan White was much more powerful than this one and the TV movie of his struggle accomplished so much more with so much less.
Did anyone else find this movie almost unwatchable? I’m usually the type of guy who likes movies that are popular, but this one sucked. It let me down.
To be honest, I like the movie. Only one of the firm partners is obviously fundamentalist, and while I can’t vouch for Philidelphia, my hometown is about as tolerant as most of the characters in the movie.
I thought Tom Hanks put in an excellent performance, as usual. I didn’t think Denzel Washington’s character became a completely tolerant person, but I think he did learn something. What’s wrong with that? It may be cliche, but we never stop learning.
Want a powerful movie on AIDS? Look for Silverlake Life: The View From Here. It’s a documentary/video diary of filmmaker Tom Joslin and his partner of 20 years, Mark Massi, who were both diagnosed with AIDS. It documents both their life and love together and the losing battle with this disease. When Tom got too weak to continue filming, one of his former students edited the video which became Silverlake Life.
Suffice it to say, this is the singular most powerful work I have ever seen or read. You *will[i/] be affected by it. I’ll never hear the song “You Are My Sunshine” the same way again.
Rasa - where do we find this film? And is it the Silverlake in Los Angeles? (I have some gay friends who live in Silverlake.)
I thought “Philadelphia” was OK, but as one of my friends said, Tom Hanks was “homosexual-Lite”. I am not sure what he meant, but I did see a lot of stereotypes and cliches in the movie. I am not sure it deserved the awards it was given, I just think it was the first big budget “mainstream” film on AIDS, and therefore it got a lot of attention.
There was one very well done and very subtle twist in “Philadelphia” which is often missed. In a later scene when Wheeler (Jason Robards) (the head of the law firm that fires Tom Hanks’s character) and some of his underlings are discussing the case. One of the underlings makes some mention that hints that he knew Andy (Hanks’s character) had AIDS before Andy told anyone. Robards looks at him in horror and says “My God… you didn’t know he was sick, did you?” (Remember, Andy sues the firm for firing him for having AIDS, not for being gay.) The guy weasels out of admitting he knew Andy was sick. So in that line, it would seem Wheeler might not have fired him for having AIDS after all.
The movie never actually reveals Wheeler’s motivation for firing Andy. He wins the suit and it’s pretty clear who the bad guys are, and the jury’s decision is presented as being logical and having the weight of the evidence behind it, but there is no one expository scene that demonstrates it. The audience is left only with the evidence as presented in court. So they do leave in the possibility Andy was fired for screwing up a case after all.
My dad is a lawyer, and consequently hates most movies’ and TV shows’ representation of how the courts work. When my mom rented “Philadelphia”, he was irritated enough to walk out of the living room. This was when Denzel Washington is questioning Tom Hanks about his lesions. It is made perfectly clear that no one could see the lesions on his chest, but Denzel has Tom unbutton his shirt, revealing many horrible lesions. Everyone is shocked. The scene is over. Even I could see why my dad was annoyed - if no one could see the lesions, they’re of no legal consequence and inadmissable. While dramatic, it was poor lawyering on Denzel’s part.
FTR, I liked the movie, but I was about sixteen the last time I saw it. I’m more cynical now.
RickJay, I didn’t think that was thrown in there to be a twist. I thought it was thrown in there to show what a self-deluded old fool the guy was. I thought they wanted us to sneer at him for not even admitting the truth to his allies.