Bill (2007) Reviews

• Light fun with a surprise or two

  sioenroux2008-05-07

  I'm not much of a comedy fan, mostly because in recent years they've strayed too far into smart-ass one-liner dumb-formula potty-humor cardboard-cutout territory, which is fine if you like that sort of thing, but I don't. This, though, is an old-fashioned comedy with heart. Can Bill make his life better with the help of a precocious teen? Sure he can. But the way he gets there isn't just the standard formula, and that makes it a fun watch. It also helps that the technical work is all top-notch, and the supporting cast is pitch perfect, from the staid father-in-law to the somewhat manic doughnut franchisers. This isn't a movie that will make you guffaw and belly laugh for an hour and a half, but it does make you feel inspired and offers a few chuckles along the way. In that regard, it reminds me of "Charlie Bartlett," "Juno" and "Rocket Science." I'm glad this style of comedy didn't die out because of the Farrelly Brothers' success. Their kind of comedy is redundant and dumb -- this type leaves you happy for a while. And Hollywood should do that more often.

• An enjoyable movie

  amalmer2008-07-20

  I just watched Meet Bill last night, and while it wasn't fantastic, it was definitely worth the watch. This movie follows the main character Bill, who, after a series of downfalls, realizes life isn't going they way he wanted. He then offers to mentor a rich, self-assured high school student. In the end, the student more or less ends up mentoring Bill, and helps him to change his views on life. I thought the chemistry between Logan Lerman (the kid) and Aaron Eckhart (Bill) was fantastic! they both did a great job with their role, and stole the whole show. These roles were out of style for both actors--I've never seen Eckhart do comedy, and Lerman's character was much more rebellious than usual. It just shows the talent of both actors, especially the versatility of Lerman. The rest of the supporting characters were slightly under-developed. The style of comedy in this movie is more..."old school" in my opinion. It's not slap-stick or non-stop laughter, but the comedy is inter-weaved throughout the film, with several vary funny scenes and one-liners. I would say the film is geared toward audiences from the mid 20s to mid 40s. However, I am a 16 year old female, and I enjoyed the film. The plot does get lost a bit, and some characters are under-developed, but overall it's a good independent film. Is it the best or funniest movie you'll ever see? Probably not. But it delivers a style of comedy not found often these days, and if you connect with the style and the story, you will definitely like this movie.

• Aaron Eckhart works as hard here as any actor you'll ever see

  MBunge2010-09-03

  This movie is like someone standing on a beach watching a man drown 6 feet from shore where, instead of throwing the drowning man a life preserver, the sadistic watcher throws him a series of concrete blocks. Aaron Eckhart is the drowning man, desperately trying to save himself and this film, while the insipid script and lifeless direction of Meet Bill keep dragging him down. Bill (Aaron Eckhart) is less a character and more a collection of characteristics. He's got a pot belly and a bad haircut. He has his job only because he married his boss' daughter, even though his boss treats him more like an intern than an executive. He's got a gay brother and a serious candy addiction. I guess this mix of common and quirky traits is supposed to make the audience empathize and identify with Bill, but he's really just an annoying and self-pitying shmuck. Bill is unhappy with his life and dreams of trading in his job at his father-in-law's bank for running his own doughnut shop. Then, two things happen. First, Bill is roped into being a mentor to a high school kid (Logan Lerman). Second, Bill finds out his wife Jessica (Elizabeth Banks) is cheating on him. Let me digress for a moment. The high school kid in Bill doesn't have a name and is, in fact, listed in the credits only as "The Kid". If you ever write a screenplay, on behalf of everyone who might ever read it, I beg you to please, please, please give all of your characters actual names. You might think it's cute and clever to have one just be called "The Kid" or something, but it's not. It's stupid and aggravating. People, whether close friends or relative strangers, call each other by their names all the time and it's both very noticeable and irritating when a script goes out of its way to avoid that. I don't care if you think the character being nameless has some thematic significance. It's just dumb. Returning to the movie, Bill freaks out when he discovers Jessica is sleeping with a cheesy local news anchor. He beats the guy up and gets thrown in jail. Bill also moves out of his own huge house and into his gay brother's equally huge home. He hangs out with The Kid, who tries to help Bill loosen up and enjoy life. Bill also takes up swimming and keeps trying to finagle his way into owning that doughnut shop. There's also a sex tape, a big party where everything goes wrong and a pointless subplot where The Kid keeps hitting on this lingerie store clerk (Jessica Alba). Not that hitting on Jessica Alba is pointless, but it serves absolutely no purpose in the story. The things that happen in this movie either don't make sense or you don't care about them if they do. How does a dorky loser like Bill end up with a woman who looks like the incredibly appealing Elizabeth Banks? There's no explanation of what Jessica could have ever seen in him. Bill obviously gets paid a lot of money for very little work, has a huge house and a smokin' hot wife…and we're supposed to care that he's not satisfied with all that? When we find out Jessica is cheating on Bill, there's no emotional impact to it because if you were married to a pathetic non-entity like Bill, you'd probably cheat on him too. There's absolutely no reason or explanation for why The Kid makes such enormous efforts to attach himself to Bill and try and help him out, like an overexcited hybrid of Ferris Bueller and Jiminy Cricket, and The Kid is so theatrically irreverent that you just want Bill to smack him. The story also connects Bill's growth as a human being to him shaving off his body hair, which is just odd. This movie is completely uninvolving, even though Aaron Eckhart is working as hard in this film as I've ever seen any performer work in anything. He does everything but drop trou and show us his Little Eckhart to make us laugh or feel ANYTHING about Bill. All of his efforts, however, are smothered by the relentlessly limp work of these filmmakers. Unless you enjoy watching a drowning man being thrown cement blocks, there's nothing in Meet Bill for anyone to enjoy.

• How do I put this without offending the women here?

  baddadanu2009-11-05

  There's really no way so screw it, I'll be blunt. ONLY a female writer/director would consider it a satisfying story where on top of being shamelessly unfaithful, kicking around her husband, and behaving like a spoiled, entitled brat for the majority of the film, not only fails to redeem herself or receive any kind of come-uppance for being such a bitch, but is rewarded by her husband who simply gives her what we just watched him spend the entire movie working to acquire. WHO DOES THAT??? I literally came away from this wondering if emasculation was an intentional theme here. It's like watching this man get kicked in the balls for an hour and a half just to pull himself together (apparently by losing his gut and getting a haircut), give farewell hugs and kisses to all the ball-kickers and we're supposed to applaud this as his triumph. I spent the whole movie saying to myself "I know a woman wrote this... I know a woman wrote this..." I came on IMDb to check it out and guess what. Wrote AND co-directed! Not that there aren't female writers & directors who are excellent at what they do. Not that a female writer/director is obliged to write "for" a male audience. Not even that a female writer/director can't bring feminist sensibilities to her work. But was the writer/director here really so pro-female (or anti-male) that the main character isn't even allowed to give his cheating wife the telling-off and/or retribution that she'd been begging for the whole film? Am I the only one who feels this way? Or maybe I'm missing the point. If I am, maybe someone could help me understand. Because I can't imagine any man who would think this "works". And I can think of quite a few women who would agree.

• Pointless and bland

  elizabethnagroves2008-09-07

  I thought this movie was utterly terrible. It was completely unoriginal and there were so many superfluous characters and scenes that is was just ridiculous. What as the Jessica Alba character supposed to be? What was she supposed to add? The Kid character was pretty pointless also. There was an endless series of scenes that, I assume, were supposed to be funny, but added nothing to the narrative. There is this whole subplot where we are supposed to imagine that the Kid and Alba might have some romantic chemistry, but it is just ludicrous. Also, one of the major plot points is Bill trying to win back his wife. However, we never get a sense of why he would want to do this. After all, she is uniformly terrible to him throughout the movie, and he doesn't seem that into her, until it's convenient for the plot. If they had taken out some of the more pointless scenes (especially the one with the Kid dancing around in women's underwear--what was that about?), and spent more time exploring the relationship between the two leads, then it might have made more sense. Aaron Eckhart is a very talented actor, and did the best with the story he had. However, there was no saving this train wreck. I would say that it would benefit from better editing, but in all honesty, it would have to be edited to the point of non-existence to be improved. Largely, this movie seemed like a low-rent, cheap rehash of some of the themes from American Beauty, without any of the depth, humour, or intelligence. They had the repressed husband attempting to break free, the bitchy adulterous wife, and drug dealing rebellious teenage boy. What a waste of time, and in Eckhart's case, talent.