Issue date: 3/27/07 Section: Aggielife

Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler team up for director Mike Binder's film 'Reign Over Me.'

The mind is a beautiful and dangerous thing - both a hub for artistic genius and a prison cell. In the wake of calamity, the mind can become an entity separate from the body, completely shutting one off from an environment once known, placing a wall between the pain and devastation and the remnants of a shattered world.

In a film as distinctive as it is cogent, Mike Binder explores the devastation wrought upon the mind of a single man, years after the tragic day in September 2001.

After losing three daughters, his wife and his poodle, Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler) is no longer the man he was years ago. Suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) - the same mind disorder usually associated with war veterans - Fineman attempts to erase from his mind anything and anyone from the past that he once knew. That is until one day, while driving home, Dr. Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) sees Fineman walking down the street. Thus, this begins Fineman's road to recovery and self-realization as two old friends rekindle a lost connection.

The beauty in Binder's "Reign Over Me" is the manner in which the lives of each character are separate, laced with their own sufferings, all the while relating to and eventually melding into the life of Charlie Fineman. Much of the film is shot resembling documentary-style cinematography, with several over-the-shoulder shots and uneasy movement resulting from the use of a hand cam. Lavish, raw emotion is conferred directly to the heart of the viewer as each word spoken, each heart-wrenching outburst, leaves only eyes welling with tears. Certainly one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood, Sandler delivers a performance - complimented, of course, by the flawless acting of Cheadle - which is compelling and disturbingly real.

To not feel the need to dab moist eyes toward the end of the film would be inhuman. Be it the dialogue, the acting or perhaps the symbiotic nature of both, the film finds warmth in even the worst of tragedies. Meant to see ourselves in Charlie, his words echo true in the heart of the viewer - "You remind me of me" - and rightfully so.

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