The Butler - Review
The film talks about the life of Cecil Gaines, a butler who worked in the White House for eight presidents, from Eisenhower to Reagan...while the film has lots of actos who won an oscar, it still loses the interest over the main character.
Cecil Gaines was a sharecropper's son who grew up in the 1920s as a domestic servant for the white family who casually destroyed his. Eventually striking out on his own, Cecil becomes a hotel valet of such efficiency and discreteness in the 1950s that he becomes a butler in the White House itself. There, Cecil would serve numerous US Presidents over the decades as a passive witness of history with the American Civil Rights Movement gaining momentum even as his family has troubles of its own. As his wife, Gloria, struggles with her addictions and his defiant eldest son, Louis, strives for a just world, Cecil must decide whether he should take action in his own way.
Forest Whitaker does a good job as the kind and respectful butler but it misses something, it has nothing special, the main character is not interesting but the stories around him are what you want to see. You can see important events in American Story from the murder of JFK to the elections winning of Obama and the events of Martin Luther King... It shows what many people tried to stop, the racism and it remembers what people with power did and didn't do.
The cast is quite good, you can see many good actors like Robin Williams, Jane Fonda, Alan Rickman and John Cusack who played Nixon quite well but didn't fit too much in the character, he simply acts as always. But there are other ones like James Marsden who plays perfectly as Kennedy, the same with Alan Rickman's Reagan. Oprah Winfey plays as Cecil's wife very well, she's a good actress but I don't think she deserves an Oscar as many people say.
I have to add I would have loved to see a little more of Jane Fonda and Robin Williams, they have very shorts scenes!
· BEST - Acting of some actors like Williams, Rickman and Marsden are amazing plus the change to see those historical people and events together in one movie.
· WORST - The main character and the film are not interesting as we already know what's going to happen...
Cecil Gaines was a sharecropper's son who grew up in the 1920s as a domestic servant for the white family who casually destroyed his. Eventually striking out on his own, Cecil becomes a hotel valet of such efficiency and discreteness in the 1950s that he becomes a butler in the White House itself. There, Cecil would serve numerous US Presidents over the decades as a passive witness of history with the American Civil Rights Movement gaining momentum even as his family has troubles of its own. As his wife, Gloria, struggles with her addictions and his defiant eldest son, Louis, strives for a just world, Cecil must decide whether he should take action in his own way.
Forest Whitaker does a good job as the kind and respectful butler but it misses something, it has nothing special, the main character is not interesting but the stories around him are what you want to see. You can see important events in American Story from the murder of JFK to the elections winning of Obama and the events of Martin Luther King... It shows what many people tried to stop, the racism and it remembers what people with power did and didn't do.
The cast is quite good, you can see many good actors like Robin Williams, Jane Fonda, Alan Rickman and John Cusack who played Nixon quite well but didn't fit too much in the character, he simply acts as always. But there are other ones like James Marsden who plays perfectly as Kennedy, the same with Alan Rickman's Reagan. Oprah Winfey plays as Cecil's wife very well, she's a good actress but I don't think she deserves an Oscar as many people say.
I have to add I would have loved to see a little more of Jane Fonda and Robin Williams, they have very shorts scenes!
· BEST - Acting of some actors like Williams, Rickman and Marsden are amazing plus the change to see those historical people and events together in one movie.
· WORST - The main character and the film are not interesting as we already know what's going to happen...
6 / 10
