The Family Man

My husband and I purchased this to watch on one of our movie nights… We both loved it!

Great Purchase

This movie is the worst Xmas movie ever, (and I've seen Polar Express). Watched this turkey on Christmas because my wife wanted a Christmas movie, should have rewatched Die Hard instead.Spoilers ahead. Nic Cage plays a successful Wall Street deal maker who's only faults seem to be that he is a work-acholic and he's a bit of a jerk to his co-workers who are not. He's friendly with his doorman and has enough of a social life to hook up with attractive women (unless that was an escort and I just didn't catch on). There is nothing to indicate that he feels he's missing something even though it's obvious that's what we're supposed to assume via the flashback to 13 years earlier when he departs his girlfriend for a year stint in England. Téa Leoni plays the girlfriend who as he is about to board the plane begs him not to go because she feels that she will never see him again and she's right because: movie premise. This is the first of two inexplicable plot points in this craptastic screenplay, so much wrong, who does this??? First off if your relationship can't survive being apart, it's not that strong. Yes a year overseas is a big test of that but we're meant to believe that these two are soul mates so why would they never see each other again, they both returned to NYC. It may have made sense if it was explained how they managed to break up but unfortunately the movie left a big blank there.So Cage is minding his own business trying to get some egg nog when he witnesses what looks like a robbery, he decides to intervene and talk the situation down and eventually succeeds. After getting the robber out of the store Cage tries to offer the robber some help. However the robber is no ordinary crook, Don Cheadle plays the magical black person troupe who as evidenced by the rest of his appearances in the movie is out looking for cheats and crooks (the hell these people receive might have made for a more interesting movie) but is interrupted by Cage just trying to help. To Cage he says "you brought this on yourself." WHAT?The rest of the movie is a reverse This Wonderful Life, where Cage wakes up in suburbia married to Leoni with 2 kids, a minivan and a crappy job working for his father in-law having not left for England all those years ago. Cheadle explains that this is a glimpse of what could have been and that it's up to Cage to "figure it out". This is messed up, premise seems to imply that Cage needs to accept and come to love this life before he can be free of it, so either he hates it and is locked into it forever or he finds a way to love it in which case it gets torn away from him and it never exists breaking his heart. That is some big time psychological torture right there, and what did he do to deserve this? He tried to help someone.Cage eventually does come to love his new family as the weeks go by (Yes, WEEKS) but apparently this is not enough. A chance run in with his boos from real life enables him to snatch back his old life and bring his family to the city, when he shows Leoni the awesome apartment they could live is as a "perk" she delivers the second inexplicable plot point when she explains she doesn't want it and that her idea of the perfect life is growing old in that house in suburbia. My wife and I and our two kids were throwing popcorn at the TV at this point screaming "Take the job you idiot!" I can only assume this movie was written by a millionaire with no real idea of what it's like to live the middle class life, all the horrible aspects (changing diapers, walking the dog, old minivan breaking down) are played for laughs in a completely unfunny way.And what about the kids? At the end of this mess they don't exist. I think I've figured out what's really going on, see Cheadle is an Angel, but not just any Angel he's the HR (or AR) person in heaven and it's his job to arrange vacation time for the other angels, but where would angels vacation? They can't just fly around having a good time and all the people have souls occupying their bodies. So Cheadle arranges these brief alternate realities with children who don't exist and don't have souls and the Angels can be the children for a few weeks to alleviate the stress of an eternity of harping on cloud tops I guess. It's the only way this movie makes any sense.I won't spoil the ending because you already know how it ends, even though it shouldn't.

This should be on the TV every Thanksgiving or Christmas! Its a classic.yes, its a great story, Nicolas Cage is just great, and it really does touch on what's going on in so many marriages, in so many little ways.And of course, Tea Leoni is just heartbreakingly sweet, sexy and stunning in "wife with two kids" way that is just, well, memorable in every way. You can't help but love her. That scene at the airport.......sigh.It really helps a guy see things from a woman's perspective. But in many ways it should go the other way as well.Woman should watch this, as yes, this is what 94.7% of guys are feeling.

It’s one of those classics that I can watch over and over for years. I came to the realization that I’m a huge Nick Cage fan over the last couple years. I didn’t really take him that seriously for a long time because of his long string of big budget Hollywood garbage. And Tea Leone…what’s not to like.

By now you probably now more or less what the plot of this film is. If that plot sounds appealing, you will definitely like this film. Well written, well directed, and very well acted, it takes a potentially schmaltzy premise and makes a very enjoyable film out of it. Although the DVD box has the reviewer quote "Hilarious" on the front, for the most part this is an amusing and sentimental film, rather than a knee-slapper. Once you accept the fantasy premise, most of the film rings true. Sure, if the road not taken involves being married to Tea Leoni, the deck is stacked a bit. But I really bought into the emotional truth at the core of this film. My only quibble [SPOILER ALERT] concerns the ending. Once Jack has come to love his suburban Jersey life and then is jerked back into his investment banker life, his actions don't really seem convincing. After he tracks Kate down to her townhouse as she packs to leave for Paris, would he really turn away and leave without a greater effort to connect with her? And having gone to the airport to make one last attempt to convince her to stay, would he once again nearly turn away after making only another feeble effort? Seems inconsistent with his hard-driving nature and with the epiphany he had experienced in his Jersey life. The brief scene that immediately precedes these scenes in which he tells his investment banker colleagues that he buys into his NYC life isn't enough to justify the feebleness of his subsequent efforts to win back Kate. Clearly, these final scenes were meant to increase the drama of the eventual reconnection, but alone in the film they don't ring true to me.Finally, there is a little bit of a glitch in the film. [Continued spoiler alert] At one point, Jack finds out that he and Kate moved from Greenwich Village to Jersey only after Kate became pregnant. Their oldest child is at most five (more likely four), and 13 years have past between 1987, when Jack left for London, and 2000, when the movie is set. So that means they lived in Greenwich Village pursuing their Manhattan careers for at least seven years before settling in Jersey - unless, implausibly, Jack began working at Big Ed's early on and was commuting back and forth every day from Manhattan to Jersey. A long enough time, you would think, for Jack to have made progress in the world of Manhattan finance, even without benefit of the London internship, and for Kate to have continued on her actual (non-pro bono lawyer) career path. Presumably, the filmmakers needed a significant span of time to make Jack's rise to the top of the investment banking world plausible and to match Nicholas Cage's age (although Tea Leoni could easily have passed for being in her late 20s), and making their kids older would have made them less cute. Unfortunately, though, the chronology doesn't quite add up. Still, a terrifically entertaining film (particularly at Christmas)!

A lovely story with great characters. One of my all-time films.

The characters are not terribly well developed and the plot lines are naive and often unclear. Nevertheless the two main actors carry the story through some weird and very uncertain magical life-shifts and we accepted most of the flaws right to the end. And that's where we parted company and will throw out the DVD. The ending just does not make sense at any level. It's Sleepless in Seattle meets Groundhog Day. I can think of at least three other endings which would have left the audience cheering but this one is just crazily mixed up. He gives a speech referring in depth to his alternate life (after which most listeners would have called the funny-doctors) and the impression left with the audience is that he's going to try to recreate that life after a gap of 13 years and two very different lives but with a huge amount more cash in the bank. Just doesn't work.

Family Man is a great family movie with a great story and very enjoyable. Very well chosen characters with a very meaningful story that makes you think about what is really important in our lives. The Blu Ray picture quality is average and I am sure more could have been done to achieve a clearer picture but its good enough. Great movie

If you've ever wondered what your life would have been like if you had made certain decisions in your life and wished you could have seen if your life would have turned out better or worse then being Jack Campbell (Nicholas Cage) would seem like a dream come true. Except such a decision is more difficult when you seem to have it all and as for Jack he has a well paid job as a Wall Street Investment Banker, he has a fast car, a luxurious appartment in which he can entertain plenty of beautiful women. Jack feels his life is complete until one day he intervenes in a robbery at a local store and by explaining that his life is better than the thiefs he awakens to find himself in the arms of his ex girlfriend (Tea Leoni) from 13 years ago, a confused Jack is then confronted by his two children and pet dog. It's from that moment that Jack looks into the life he missed and after trying to retain the life he left he finds out that the wealthiest man is the man who has a family.Cage is on top form as he tries to convince the strangers around him that he is the real Jack. It sets up comedic moments as well as moments of complete desperation on the part of Cage as he tries to gain back his old life while sticking with the family forced upon him. Leoni is the perfect wife who unlike Jack is a non profit lawyer. With that the messages in the film are many, whether it's the age old debate of you're not really happy when your wealthy or alone, to the contrasts between the big money hungry city and suburbia where everyone knows your name and respects you despite your status in life. For me the film is mostly about the decisions we make and how they mould who we become and what life we lead, whether it will be a good or bad choice you will never know if it was the best one.The film has a lot of sentimentality especially between Jack and his children which increasingly becomes more touching and tragic towards the end when his glimpse of what could have been draws to a finish. Indeed whether you like your films butch or not you will not help but sympathise with the messages and excellent interaction between each of the characters Jack meets, all of them who love him in different ways. By the time the final credits role you suddenly see the fast cars and high paid jobs as less important than the relationships we have.

I was nabbed in my local store by someone saying, "Have you watched The Family Man yet"? Well, I hadn't!It's fairly old. The story is potentially good, although it wasn't as lovey-dovey as I was expecting.I have given it a mid-score - not great, not bad. That pretty much sums it up!

Everybody has goals, whether it is a better car, job or a nice home near the beach, but the important thing to think about when you are committed to reach your goals is why you wanna reach them in the first place. This is an excellent movie that portraits the way we are right now due to the decisions we've made so far and how things could have turned out had we chosen a different line.I guess we always think about possible different outcomes in our lives, but the amazing thing to know, and which is outlined in this movie, is that regardless of the choices we've made there's still another opportunity and it is all up to us to live the way we really want to.You may find out that your current shallow way to see life is just a consequence of living a life you didn't choose. Perhaps you are happy with material things but you might unconsciously be missing something else, something you don't have and which might even be more important to you.You gotta watch this movie indeed!