I seem to remember liking Nicholas Cage at one point. There as a point when all his previous mistakes of the past were forgiven and slosh like Con Air could be possibly just another bad decision by a good actor. But Maybe Nicholas Cage doesn't make bad decisions, maybe he's just really not too smart in landing rolls. Fresh from one of the worst, studio-concocted summer flicks of all time `Gone In 60 Seconds,' which just happened to have been gleefully gobbled up by the public, another Christmastime warmness-inducing studio-concocted sentimentalist melodrama like The Family Man is Cage's next big starring role- must've looked like a real good idea on paper. Not only is The Family Man a horrendous extended ripoff/homage to `It's a Wonderful Life,' ` A Christmas Carol,'the Rob Reiner dump `The Story of Us,' and basically any other movie that questions What would have happened if
.,' it is dripping in unforgivably predictable goo. There's a cute little kid who acts as a guide, a big greedy fatcat unconcerned of his workers(Cage in his pre-epiphany stage), a man/dog bonding thing, the obligatory black guy who acts as another guide/ spirit (though his character confusingly starts off as a brainless hoodlum trying to scam himself a winning lottery ticket), and an ending providing little solace of believable hope for the futures of its characters. I can't stress how terribly astray the ending goes in presenting an open-ended scenario that in all likelihood will ultimately fail. Maybe it was a final desperate attempt to stray from total predictability. Despite multi-dimensional acting roles performed with skill by Tea Leoni and even Nicholas Cage, I still can't excuse this boring, lengthy,uninspired script. Just can't do it.
Review of The Family Man
