Meet Joe Black

Year of release : 1998

Run time : 3h1m

Genre : Fantasy / Romance

Cast : Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Claire Forlani, Jake Weber, Marcia Gay Harden

The movie is based on the 1934 movie, "Death takes a holiday", which is based on the 1929 play of the same name by Walter Ferris, which is itself a remake of the 1924 Italian play "La morte in vacanza (Death on holiday)" by Alberto Casella.

On the week before his 65th birthday, media mogul Bill Parish is awaken from his sleep by chest pains. He hears a voice saying "Yes".

His eldest daughter is planning a big birthday party for him,thing he doesn't care for.

Susan is dating Drew, one of Bill's company board members. Bill likes him, but he doesn't think Susan is that in love with him, and tells her to be with a man she is madly in love with.He wants her to have what he had with her mother.

His eldest daughter is also married to one of Bill's board members, who seems to be a really nice guy (he reminds me of Phil from Modern Family) who loves her.

After being taken to the city in her father's helicopter,Susan goes to the restaurant near the hospital she works at to have breakfast (although she could have eaten all she wanted at home! Her family is very rich, they have servants and chefs.).She hears a man talking to his younger sister on the public pay phone, and when he joins her at the bar, they start talking. They both like each other, but neither has the guts to ask the other out.

They keep on stopping to look after the other, and while doing so, the man is hit by a car!

In his office, Bill has worse chest pains , and hears the voice he heard all morning again,saying "the answer to your question is Yes."

In the evening, when Bill's daughters with their partners have dinner at his place, the voice tells him he is at the door. He asks his maid to see if there's anyone at the door, and when he hears there is, he tells her to invite them in.

When the person reveals themselves, he tells him he is Death, and he is there because he has only a short time left to live, but he is willing to give him more days if he wants to show him around, as he wants to see what's like to be alive. He also looks exactly like the man Susan fell for earlier at the restaurant.

Bill introduces him to his family as Joe Black, at the same dinner table, and Susan starts talking to him, thinking it's the same man from that morning.

Joe aka Death wanders around the place, discovers peanut butter which he loves, and just like the man who's body he took, is attracted to Bill's younger daughter, Susan.

Meanwhile, Susan's boyfriend, Drew, is trying a bit too much to make her father sell the company to a particular man, thing Bill refuses, which makes Drew take drastic measures.

 

I liked the movie, but there were certain things which didn't make sense, like, Death has been around forever, but it was like a child, it acted like a kid. At the end of the movie, it smarts up, and says things which until then it seemed it didn't know about. I think that being around forever, Death should have been the opposite, smart, witty, all knowing.

I thought the movie was too long, the scenes went on forever, the dialogue was eternal! There's also a sort of s3x scene in there which should not have existed,in my opinion, and it would have saved the movie half an hour, because it felt that long! It actually made me laugh, because at that time it started boring me, and I was thinking the movie was eternity itself!

It felt the movie was very quiet, the lead actors , Brad Pitt and Claire Forlani (who I found so unattractive!!), were whispering all the time, to the point I had no idea what were they saying most of the time, I felt they should have come with subtitles, but when the music kicked in, it got loud, to the point I had to adjust the volume!

Also, the father, kisses his daughters ,especially Susan, on the mouth all the time!

Speaking of the father, he had a favorite daughter, Susan, who already knows how he feels for her, while the older daughter knows she's not the favorite. At the end, he expresses his feelings, again, for his favorite daughter, when the one he should have told this to was the other daughter! This made the character unlikeable to me.

The acting was good, Anthony Hopkins was the best, as always.

The soundtrack was good.

The movie was cut to two hours for tv,cutting out all the business scenes, thing the director Martin Brest, didn't agree with.

The movie grossed 142.9 million dollars against a budget of 90 million.

It received mixed reviews, the critics complaining about the length, slow pacing ,the screenplay, the characters being one dimensional, Brad Pitt's acting (I thought he was fine).. but loving Anthony Hopkins' acting and character which they considered the only fully developed character.

Cinema Score audiences graded the movie an A-.

The movie was nominated for a Razzie Award for "Worst Remake or Sequel".

You can watch the full movie following this link, for free :

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9hq7aw

Rating : Worth a watch !