Simply A Masterpiece

Sadly Over-hyped

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The Gift is one of the more serious films made by Sam Raimi,which is not a positive and not a negative thing, because this movie is as good as Evil Dead, or Spider-Man, only a different kind of Story.It's from 2000, around this time people seemed to make movies to tell interesting stories, not just to sell toys, and this movie is a great example. It's written by the well-known actor Billy Bob-Thornton who was inspired by his mother who apparently had some sort of psychic powers. If you believe something like that or not is completely subjective and has no impact on your enjoyment of this fictional tale, which is very dramatic and very well told.The camera-work isn't as outrages and wild as in over Raimi movies, which fits the story and underlines the tone of the movie perfectly. Because of this, the creative and intense scenes in which the protagonist has symbolic dreams, or psychic premonitions are all the more effective, and the visual effects are almost unnoticeable, even after all these years.The acting in this film is overall fantastic, one of the strongest reasons why this movie works for me is that i was completely engaged. I was afraid that Cate Blanchett's character, or her children could get hurt by Keanu Reeves, who's unbelievably threatening in this film and gives one of his best performances. Not to mention Giovanni Ribisi, J.K. Simmons, Katie Holmes or especially Greg Kinnear.The soundtrack by Christopher Young (who Raimi would later work with on Spider-Man 3) also fits well for the setting and atmosphere. All in all i was very surprised by the quality of this movie, which also has a very satisfying conclusion.It reminded me in some aspects of one of my favourite thrillers "What lies beneath" which came out the same year...

Maybe i'm wrong but it's the first movie i watch with a lot of big names and that ends up really good : Hillary, Keanu, Katie, Cate, Kinnear and Ribisi really push their original characters and thus the movie never lost quality. In addition, we have Sam's team on the board as well with « aunt May », « JJJ », « sheriff Lucas Buck » and the famous yellow Oldsmobile. It's a pity that we don't have the usual cameos of Sam himself, his brother or Campbell ! It's also a great thing to find a story in a small town, with « ordinary » people having simple life as ours. I expected Sam to be more dynamic and on the contrary, the movie is as quiet as lying water. But as the main hero isn't Darkman or Spiderman but a widower mother of three boys, he was inspired to choose this pace: it really fits the Cate's compassion and maternal instinct, all the more than as told in the movie, she is really the heart of the town ! And for sure this wild nature with swamps and torn trees are as much frightening as any other supernatural monsters !

Jessica King (Katie Holmes), the fiancée of Wayne Collins (Greg Kinnear), has gone missing. Annabelle Wilson (Cate Blanchett) is the local psychic who has visions of Jessica King. Following her advise, Sheriff Pearl Johnson (J.K. Simmons) dredges the swamp and finds Jessica's body. Donnie Barksdale (Keanu Reeves) is jailed for the murder. However, Annabelle keeps getting visions. There's more to the murder.Director Sam Raimi has teamed up with Billy Bob Thornton once again and this time as a writer. Cate Blanchett is terrific. There is an overload of big time actors. I almost wish that some of the lesser roles get played by smaller unknown actors. When it's overloaded like this, the movie can feel very Hollywood. However Blanchett never once feels fake in any way. She becomes the character with ease.

First of all, I would like to express how much I liked the movie soon after I've done watching it. The scene-switching goofs and errors aren't enough to destroy the whole of the film.I like the entire concept of having a crime which was witnessed by a person who wasn't even in the crime scene but witnessed it through her dreams and visions.Despite the fact that movies featuring extrasensory perception of a character is not very unique, what makes this movie really crafted is the great talent of its producers to create an ambiance of mystery without the need of making mainstream plots like having deaths caused by ghosts or monsters haunting for justice.I also liked that they were able to portray spooky scenes without using heavy prosthetic make-up and with just a little of computer generated effects. It made everything appear natural and affright natural.Furthermore, I know that the ending wasn't that perfect. There seem to be many aspects in the story left behind leaving the viewers ask: what happened to this and that. However, I don't know why I enjoy the ending that much (and that is how an ending should be, enjoyed by the viewers).The screen portrayal of nearly all individuals was quite good and that ain't surprising 'cause they all are awarded by different awarding bodies.The over exposure of the trees however, is I believe, something that is not needed because it just kills the runtime. The time occupied by showing the trees should have been used for something else that contributes to the development of frighten from the audience and development of the plot, as well.Overall, I'd give it a score of 8 out of 10. Great job.