Download People Like Us
Sam Harper is a fast-talking New York salesman with money and soul problems, and the way Chris Pine plays him in “People Like Us,Cheap NFL Jerseys 2016,” you either want to hit Sam or help him out. Which means the film is doing something half-right.
A standard movie type — think Jack Lemmon in “The Apartment,” Tom Hanks in “Nothing in Common,” Hugh Grant in “About a Boy” or Tom Cruise in “Rain Man” and “Jerry Maguire” — Sam is into avoidance. When he gets news that his father, a once-famous music producer,Cheap Jerseys 2016, has died,Cheap Jerseys, Sam does all he can so he and his girlfriend (Olivia Wilde) can skip the funeral. But once he’s in L.A. to deal with his bitter mom (Michelle Pfeiffer), Sam is handed a bag of cash his dad left for him. It’d be a life-saver if he didn’t have to deliver it to a mystery woman and her 11-year-old son.
That the woman, Frankie (Elizabeth Banks), is messed up too is no surprise in a dramedy like this. Nor is the bond that develops between Frankie’s son (a good Michael Hall D’Addario) and Sam over music and guy stuff. What’s unexpected is how long the movie draws out its twist — Frankie is Sam’s half-sister, also ignored by their free-livin’ dad — without being as bad as it could have been.
You can see Sam’s brand of gotta-prove-myself drive in director Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote the movie with Roberto Orci. The pair penned some of the last decade’s biggest action blockbusters, including two “Transformers” flicks and 2009’s great “Star Trek” reboot. Kurtzman, it seems, is also seeking to prove he can be a person like us.
While such desperate strivings work against the movie, eventually it wins us over, if the music of second chances appeals to you.
Pine (aka the new Capt. Kirk) is the right front man. Sam has to appear to be a good-looking shell who’ll shill for anything except authenticity, and Pine has that earnest slickness down. It’s an effective performance; if you don’t buy him, you’ll tune out the heart “People Like Us” really wants us to know it has. Banks, an appealingly vinegary actress who hasn’t caught fire in movies, is also good, though Frankie’s working-class life requires more “acting.”