Defending Your Life

Sometimes you take a chance when purchasing movies on DVD.  You may find a movie that has a particular actor whose work you find compelling.  Or maybe you are a fan of the director or screenwriter.  Or maybe you heard good things about a film from the critics.  Whatever the reason, you decide to take a chance.  And sometimes the movie lets you down; it was a risk that didn't pan out...

...but sometimes you are pleasantly surprised.  This was the case for me when I purchased Albert Brook's Defending Your Life.  Now I have always like the self-depricating personae that Albert Brook plays from film to film; he is like a Woody Allen without all of the depressing baggage.  And I was a fan of Brooks' other films such as Lost in America despite the fact that that film plays out like a film with a terrific first and second act, but Brooks decided that writing a third act was too much trouble; that film seems to end prematurely.  

This is most definitely not true with Defending Your Life, the most complete and likable Albert Brooks film to date.  Co-starring Meryl Streep, Defending your Life has a unique premise.  When you die, as Brooks' character does at the beginning of the film, you are sent to Judgement City where they determine whether you lived a fearless life, and deserve to move on to the next level, or whether you have let fear rule your life and need to be sent back to Earth to try again.  Within this premise, Brooks manages his usual string of witty, sarcastic lines guaranteed to run the gamut from simply amusing to full, out-right belly laughs.  Unlike his other films, however, Brooks manages a sweetness that tempers his most sarcastic outbursts, and the ending of the film is justifiably sentimental and touching without descending into maudlin melodrama.

It is a wonderful film, and one of the best $5.00 I have ever spent in the cut-out bin at Walmart.

I give it a VC ranking of 10/10.

The film rankings:

1: Even Mystery Science Theater 3000 cannot save this film!!! 

2: Only watch if it is on MST3K.

3: Why did you watch this film?

4: Mediocre, but not a bad film.

5: Average film.

6: Good film.

7: Excellent film.

8: Why don't you own this film?

9: You don't have this film (there must be some good reason, right)!?!

10: I wouldn't be caught dead without this film!!!