Had a chance to see Reign Over Me recently, and was quite impressed with it. For years I had feared that "Love, Reign O'er Me"--my favorite Who song and arguably one of the top 10 rock songs of all time--would find its way into an awful movie (I've never seen "Quadrophenia," the 1979 film based on the Who's 1973 rock opera that includes the song.). Thankfully, "Reign Over Me" is an excellent film that matches the song's emotional intensity. (Pearl Jam does a decent cover of the song, but I was disappointed that the Pearl Jam version plays during the closing credits instead of the original Who version.).
"Reign Over Me" establishes Adam Sandler as a serious actor. Playing a 9/11 widower afflicted with a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder, Sandler as Charlie Fineman finds a way to transform his trademark goofiness into a mature portrayal of a troubled man. The on screen interaction of Fineman with his former dental school roommate Alan Johnson, played brilliantly by African-American actor Don Cheadle, has the humor of Gibson/Glover in the "Lethal Weapon" films but the poignancy of Steiger/Poitier in "In the Heat of the Night."
The film is far from perfect; the cluelessness of Fineman's in-laws doesn't make their forlorn stance very believable, and a Hollywoodish ending _almost_ runs the risk of robbing the film of its emotional depth. Perhaps I was too overcome by surprise at Sandler's performance to care very much about the film's shortcomings.
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