DVD of the Week: Reign Over Me

The celebrated Don Cheadle stars alongside the often overlooked (and usually rightfully so) Adam Sandler on loan from his slapstick mainstays for his second leap into dramatic material (the first being the brilliant P.T. Anderson tragicomedy Punch-Drunk Love) in Mike Binder's Reign Over Me, a funny and touching melodrama about the psychological meltdown of a man who lost his wife and children on 9/11 (Sandler) and the old friend who is trying save him from himself (Cheadle). Sandler’s Charlie Fineman is at once a jester and heartbreaker. There are moments when we forget his troubled past and his dangerous psychological illness only to be reminded of them shortly after by an explosion of his riveting despair. Cheadle’s character, Alan Johnson, is likewise a humble ringleader to the madness at the same as he is also a man of his own worries. The fullness of the story, which includes wonderfully small details of interaction between Charlie and the cast of other characters, leads to new events in Alan’s life as well. Everything unfolds with great efficacy and with a seemingly natural flow. Certainly, some things comes together a bit too nicely and there is perhaps a somewhat cinematic leniency taken toward the characters, but the integrity of the performances carry us over all of these hurdles.