My wife would swap me for Nicolas! (The Family Man (DVD))

Member Name: fooyoo

Product:	The Family Man (DVD)
Date:	29/08/02 (38 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Innocently enjoyable

Disadvantages: None really

I live with a Nicolas Cage fanatic, although the flames of passion have been severely dampened by his recent marriage to Lisa Marie Presley. Anyway, last Christmas I bought my wife this film on DVD, and I only got around to watching it this week, hence the review you now find yourself reading.

In this film Cage plays Jack Campbell, a hard working successful Wall Street investment bank president. He has the luxury penthouse, the regulation sports car, and more woman than he can handle. His life is his work, and his personal life has suffered as a consequence.

Jack thinks he has the perfect life, until a snowy Christmas Eve in a grocery store, when Jack meets Cash (Don Cheadle), who is holding up the store, until Jack rushes forward and disarms him. Cash seems to talk in riddles, and offers Jack a chance to see how his life could have turned out had he not been such a workaholic, and let his one true love Kate (Tea Leoni) drift out of his life when he left her in America whilst he moved to London to pursue his career.

The next day, Christmas Day, everything has changed and Jack wakes up in a strange house, in bed with Kate, and being jumped upon by someone's children, who he soon discovers are his own. He looks outside and his sports car has gone, and has been replaced with a practical people carrier.

Convinced that it is a mix up, he heads for the company he presides over, only to find that nobody knows who he is. Kate soons tells him that he know works for the family tyre business. At first, the thought of living like this terrifies Jack, although he soon discovers that surburban life is not as bad as he first thought, however he does not know that his time is limited.

The film is the modern day 'It's A Wonderful Life', and the direction by Brett Ratner makes for a very enjoyable journey, when previously he is better known for faster paced action films such as 'Rush Hour'.

The film is sim
ple, there are no complicated plot lines to follow, which is exactly what is needed for a film of this kind, which coupled with just the right amount of humour has made this one of the most enjoyable films I have seen in a long while. It is the second highest grossing film that Cage has ever starred in, beaten only by Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

I enjoyed the small things about the film, watching Jack adapt to life as a father, as he is torn between two lives, and at times he resembles Scrooge in his mannerisms.

This is another film which shows how versatile Nicolas Cage is, one minute he is an action hero, the next a sensitive family man. His performance is not startling, but is very solid, and he works with Tea Leoni very well. Speaking of Leoni aka Mrs David Duchovny, she is excellent as the woman who knows no different to the life she is living, and is puzzled by the behaviour of her previously dependable husband.

There is an underlying message, and in case you had not guessed, there is more to life than money, but then we knew that anyway didn't we?

Summary: