The Family Man (2000)

 Originally Reviewed

Sunday September 24, 2006

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if you had made a different decision in the past? Can one decision be the life alternating piece that decides whether you're a wealthy and successful business man, or an average middle class family man? For the highly successful Jack Campbell, those questions are about to be answered.

Thirteen years ago Jack Campbell (Nicholas Cage), about to fly to London for a one year job internship, stood in an airport terminal with his girlfriend Kate (Tea Leoni). Kate expresses her doubts about him leaving and suggests that they forget their plans and start their life together now, but Jack reassures her that one year won't change the way he feels about her.

Fast forward thirteen years to the present, Jack is the President of a very large and wealthy company, about to close one of the biggest deals in corporate history which he was responsible for. Jack is now a very successful and wealthy man, yet he is alone, while everyone else has families to go home to on Christmas Eve all he has is his work. He receives an unexpected message from his old flame Kate, but tosses it aside not wanting to dredge up old memories from the past.

Jack is in for a surprise when he wakes up on Christmas day to discover a life he could have had. Now married to his college sweetheart, Kate, and the proud father of two kids, Jack finds himself in the life of a middle class tire salesman. This is all just a glimpse of what his life could have been, but it's a glimpse he's stuck in until he's able to figure out why this is all happening.

I've watched The Family Man on a few times over the years, but for some reason it wasn't as good this time, or maybe I don't remember quite how I felt about the film before. Frankly, The Family Man is quite the forgettable film, it doesn't leave you with any lasting memory and isn't the film most people will want to watch again and again. It's the type of film that gets old fast as you watch the characters continue to run around in circles until the very end, where even then your left with a rather lack luster finish that leaves you hanging.

Nicholas Cage and Tea Leoni do a fine job, but my problem with them is their acting is too one dimensional. Cage seems to be almost identical in most of his roles and Leoni's whining voice and overly upbeat personality tends to grade on me after a while. I really haven't seen her in role I particularly like because she always seems to play the same rather annoying character. Of course the predictable plot of the story and the fact that this type of film has been done in so many forms in the past doesn't help matters.

In the end, The Family Man is an average film. The best part of the film is the scene where Cage is changing a baby diaper and his daughter comes up to him and thinks he's an alien because he has been acting so strangely and welcomes him to earth! But overall, the film is definitely no holiday classic and probably not even one most people will want to break out once a year to watch. The acting and story is formulaic but still relatively solid, it's simply nothing new and Cage and Leoni are identical to so many characters they've played in the past. It's a nice film to watch every few years but this glimpse fades away quite fast without much of a memory.

7/10