The Mighty Review
by "Harvey S. Karten" (film_critic AT compuserve DOT com)October 3rd, 1998
THE MIGHTY
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D.
Miramax Films
Director: Peter Chelsom
Writer: Charles Leavitt, novel by Rodman Philbrick
Cast: Sharon Stone, Kieran Culkin, Elden Henson, Gena Rowlands, Harry Dean Stanton, Gillian Anderson, Meat Loaf, James Gandolfini
One of the lines in "The Mighty," if taken and analyzed seriously, could actually subvert the entire film industry, as well as theater and TV. "Every word is a part of a picture," the 13-year-old Kevin Dillon (Kieran Culkin) teaches his co- eval pupil Maxwell Kane (Elden Henson). "You just connect them together," he concludes. In other words, why spend time in a movie theater or your hard-earned money on Broadway shows? The stage is in your mind, where you can produce, act, and direct in some of the most highly-charged dramas ever made. Try to tell this to the upcoming generation, many of whom will be crowding the movie houses to see the show helmed by Peter Chelsom based on a screenplay by Charles Leavitt--which in turn comes from the novel "Freak the Mighty" by Rodman Philbrick. When they emerge from the theater, they may talk the talk but will they read the book?
"The Mighty" is the story of a friendship involving two boys, one instructing the other in the wonderful attributes of books, the other providing the legs and the physical might to allow him to continue doing so despite the threat of neighborhood toughs. If you've ever felt like an outsider, as one who cannot enter the inner chambers of a clique or have even a best friend, you may connect with this tale of a symbiotic relationship of two lads, each providing something of what's missing in the other. Otherwise, though the film has already received glowing praise as "one of the best family films of the decade"(by critic James Berardinelli) and "a classic" (by the New York Press reviewer Armond White), it's just passable fare. "The Mighty" is the sort of story recommended for junior-high book lists under the genre "handicapping conditions" or of the "uplifting, you-can-do-anything-you-want" category. It is well acted, particularly by Sharon Stone in the role of the mother you wish you had, and Kieran Culkin as boy small in stature, great in mind, and tragically ill-fated with Morquios' syndrome--a progressive, degenerative disease which has crippled him and rendered him unable to walk without braces. Elden Henson provides solid support as a hefty guy who, like the dinosaurs of which his mentor speaks has a brain the size of a walnut. Both are the butt of jokes from their mates in a Cincinnati junior high school, who are of an age not particularly known for diplomacy or compassion.
Filmed in Toronto and Cincinnati with brief episodes coming straight from the imagination of the principals, "The Mighty" opens on the hulking Max who has been left back in seventh grade twice and is consequently picked on by the smaller and younger kids in his class. A gentle creature by nature, he provokes the taunts of a school gang knows as the doghouse boys, who are led by one Blade (Joe Perrino), a kid who looks more like the newspaper boy next door than a knife-wielding mugger. So intolerant is Blade and his young heathens that they stoop to tripping the crippled Kevin by throwing a basketball at his legs. The team of Kevin and Max becomes inevitable, two against the world, and they march through the neighborhood with Kevin riding on Max's back as though they were Don Quixote and Rocinante. When Kevin is not firing up Max's imagination with tales of King Arthur and regaling him with the vocabulary of medieval days, he joins him in a series of feudal-style adventures, rescuing one damsel in distress, recovering lost gold in a rat- infested sewer, and avoiding their enemies by exploiting the shelter of a muddy moat.
With Harry Dean Stanton and Gena Rowlands as Max's understanding grandparents and Sharon Stone as the wonderfully supportive mother of the afflicted Kevin, "The Mighty" evokes some sentiment but goes far off the track when infusing a kidnapping scene involving Max's jailbird father (James Gandolfini), who was incarcerated for killing Kevin's mom.
The sharpest dialogue is reserved for Kevin, whose debilitating disease has forced him to spend a good deal of his time in his imagination, using the legend of King Arthur as his Bible. Inevitably, of course, the tragedy which strikes one of the boys will cause great pain in the other, who will keep memory alive by becoming all he can be. "The Mighty" features good chemistry between its two unlikely principals, but as a narrative it's an unexceptional buddy film.
Rated PG-13. Running Time: 106 minutes.(C) 1998 Harvey
Karten
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