Reign Over Me

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This article is about the 2007 film. For the song by The Who, see Love, Reign o'er Me.

Reign Over Me
Promotional Poster
Directed by	Mike Binder
Produced by	Jack Binder, Michael Rotenberg
Written by	Mike Binder
Starring	Adam Sandler Don Cheadle Jada Pinkett Smith Liv Tyler Saffron Burrows Donald Sutherland Mike Binder
Music by	Rolfe Kent
Cinematography	Russ Alsobrook
Editing by	Steve Edwards, Jeremy Roush
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	March 23, 2007
Running time	124 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	US $20 million (IMDb estimate)^[1]
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Reign Over Me is a 2007 drama film written & directed by Mike Binder, Produced by Jack Binder. The film stars Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler, Donald Sutherland, Saffron Burrows and Binder himself.

Distributed by Columbia Pictures, the film is rated R for language and some sexual references by the MPAA and was released on March 23, 2007. The film was released to DVD on October 9, 2007.

1 Plot
2 Soundtrack
3 Cast
4 Reception
5 See also
6 Notes
7 External links

[edit] Plot

Two old friends who fell out of touch are re-united in post-9/11 New York City.

Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) is a dentist with a beautiful wife (Jada Pinkett Smith), and two devoted daughters. Yet he feels inert and empty—a bystander in his own life, too often dominated by his partners, his receptionist, and his family.

By chance, Alan spots Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler), his old college roommate from dental school, whom Alan hasn't seen or heard from in years. At first, Charlie seems not to remember Alan; he has completely shut himself off from the outside world after losing his wife and daughters in the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Reluctantly, Charlie allows Alan to rekindle their friendship—as long as they never mention Charlie's family or the reasons for his self-imposed isolation.

As the two men bond they play video games, go to all-night movie marathons, play with Charlie's music equipment and live as though their lives were as uncomplicated as they once were in their college days. Charlie spends a great deal of time playing the Playstation 2 game Shadow of the Colossus, a fantasy game in which the main character must scale and destroy 16 giant beings known as Colossi in order to revive the woman he loves. Alan spends so much time with Charlie that he starts ignoring his wife, Janeane and she starts to get a little jealous. But when Alan's father dies, he tells Charlie about it. Unable to accept the subject of death after his own experience, Charlie ignores what Alan says and invites him to hang out for the rest of the day. Confused and upset, Alan refuses and leaves. After that night Alan realizes that Charlie shouldn't live this life of pain and hide it, so he tries to help him. He invites Charlie to eat with his family, takes him out to lunch on weekdays and see a therapist, Dr. Angela Oakhurst (Liv Tyler). When the sessions seem like they are going nowhere because Charlie refuses to talk about his pain, Oakhurst tells him that he needs to tell his story to someone in order to help himself. Charlie comes to realize that she is right and breaks down telling about how he loved his wife, three daughters and the family dog to Alan. Alan now feels that he and Charlie are closer due to his openness about the story of his family.

Soon after, things get worse when Charlie decides to attempt committing suicide by finding an old gun he had. He leaves and walks the streets and sees two cops in a diner. He tries to get their attention by taking out the gun and pointing it at a cab driver, hoping that one of the officers would shoot and kill him. The two cops see Charlie with the gun and try to stop him; one of them tackles him from behind and arrests him. Alan with Dr. Oakhurst find out about this and bail him out. All criminal charges are dropped; however Charlie is required to undergo a standard three day psychiatric evaluation, to determine if he needs further mental help. After evaluation, the hospital finds that he should be committed with a court hearing to rule on it. Alan and Dr. Oakhurst try everything to keep Charlie out of the institution. Eventually, they convince Charlie's parents-in-law, Jonathan (Robert Klein) and Ginger (Melinda Dillon) Timpleman to help them and they win. The film ends with Charlie arriving back home to hang out with Alan. Alan invites one of his patients that Charlie has a crush on, Donna Remar (Saffron Burrows), to the house. When Alan leaves to give the two some alone time, he arrives at the lobby to find the front desk manager telling him Charlie can't leave his scooter in there. At first Alan refuses to bring it up and then thinks about the time he was on the scooter with Charlie one time riding around Manhattan and then decides to take a ride himself around the streets of New York.

[edit] Soundtrack

Music is an important component of this film, which uses two songs from Bruce Springsteen's The River - "Out In The Street" and "Drive All Night" - and the music of The Who as Charlie uses his iPod and headphones to selectively filter out the world. The title of the film comes from the song "Love, Reign o'er Me" by The Who. The song appears on the film's soundtrack along with a cover version recorded specifically for the film by Pearl Jam. The televised trailer features the song "Ashes" by UK band Embrace. The Fray song "How To Save A Life" is also featured on the soundtrack. The film opens with Graham Nash's "Simple Man."

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Adam Sandler	Charlie Fineman
Don Cheadle	Dr. Alan Johnson
Jada Pinkett Smith	Janeane Johnson
Liv Tyler	Dr. Angela Oakhurst
Saffron Burrows	Donna Remar
Donald Sutherland	Judge Raines
Robert Klein	Jonathan Timpleman
Melinda Dillon	Ginger Timpleman
Mike Binder	Bryan Sugarman
Dan Fleury	Dr. Christopher Berman

[edit] Reception

Entertainment Weekly gives Reign Over Me a B- rating, calling the film "a strange, black-and-blue therapeutic drama equally mottled with likable good intentions and agitating clumsiness."^[2] Reviewer Lisa Schwarzbaum shares her own discomfort with seeing the September 11th tragedy casually included as a plot device in a fictional drama, while generally praising the film's performance and story.

The New York Times found the film "maddeningly uneven," adding, "It’s rare to see so many moments of grace followed by so many stumbles and fumbles, or to see intelligence and discretion undone so thoroughly by glibness and grossness. And it is puzzling, and ultimately draining, to see a film that waves the flag of honesty — Face your demons! Speak from your heart! Open up! — turn out to be so phony."^[3]

Reign Over Me currently holds a 63% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. General praise has been awarded to the performances of Sandler and Cheadle, with many reviews praising Mike Binder's direction and screenplay.^[4] The film opened in 1,671 theaters with a $4,465 per theater average, giving it a total gross of $7.5 million for the weekend. It ended its theatrical run with a domestic total of $19.7 million and an international total of $1.2 million, making a total gross of $20.9 million.^[5]