Review of The Words (2009) by Mloy X — 06 May 2013

Mr. Jansen (J.K. Simmons): Another part of being a man, no matter how painful it might be, is accepting your own limitations.

I had such high hopes for this film. It had ubber talented Jeremy Irons, super cute Ben Barnes and equally handsome Bradley Cooper; plus an intriguing plot. How can you miss? Unfortunately it did. This was just too melodramatic and not even the compelling kind, more of the soap opera-laughable kind. Jeremy Irons was brilliant (of course) and J.K. Simmon's bit part was memorable. But Cooper gave a fairly lackluster performance and the chemistry between Cooper and Saldana was boring. Also, why the heck did Dennis Quaid act so gay? (Not that there's anything wrong with being gay) But he didn't get any of Cooper's mannerisms). Ben Barnes, who is a very capable actor was so underutilized, he barely spoke throughout the film, what a waste. This movie had so much promise but it failed to deliver, instead of potentially being exciting; sadly, it just turned out to be pretty hum-drum.