Review of Collateral Beauty (2016) by Bfoore90 — 16 Dec 2016

I love Will Smith and to his credit, he brings it in this movie. When I first saw the trailer, I figured this would be a thought provoking and emotional drama that would make up for Will Smith's recent movies (Suicide Squad, in particular) but unfortunately this movie is almost nothing like that.

The plot of the movie is basically When a successful New York advertising executive suffers from a great tragedy, he retreats from life and becomes a recluse. When their business suffers, his coworkers conspire to make him look crazy, in an effort to discredit him and keep their jobs.

Yes, you read that correctly. If you're looking for a feel-good movie full of Christmas cheers then you don't want to go see this movie.The movie means well but alas its extremely fundamentally flawed in its execution and writing.

The cast, especially Will Smith, Keira Knightley, Hellen Mirran and Naomi Harris do well in this while Edward Norton (I can't even believe I'm saying this, Michael Pena and Kate Winslet seem to be sleepwalking through the entire film.

As I said, Collateral Beauty isn't all that bad. If this movie had been better written and better directed it probably would have been the movie I thought it was supposed to be. The positives are that it does have an underlying message about grief, loss, love and time if you stick with the movie long enough to see it.

The performances make the movie watchable and the there are small, satisfying moments that should impress movie. Does it deserve the "23" that this site gives it, No it certainly not the worst movie I've ever seen but its also not the best either.

As I said, this could have been a great film for all involved had it been over-seen by a more fundamentally sound director and writer.