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Half Nelson

I wanted to see Half Nelson for a long time based on the universally glowing reviews and the rumor that Ryan Gosling's performance was a total breakthrough for an up and coming actor. Well, Gosling's performance is indeed great as is the rest of the cast, but that is the only reason I could recommend seeing this movie. I just felt like the message of the film was pointless and so much of the film feels so flat and drawn out. Much of the film could be interpreted as offensive as the main character is an anti-hero but also is the typical liberal white savior sent to educate the poor, disinterested minority kids.Sometimes I think this device can still work like in Martin Ritt's Conrack when it is sincere and not condescending to its characters, but Gosling's teacher had an agenda to rail against the world without actually engaging his students or working within the educational guidelines. The ending really resolves nothing unless the director is asking us to "make your own conclusions" which in this case I feel it would be a cop-out.

I still would rate this a 5/10 because the acting is uniformly excellent, but I could never sit through this downer again.