Monday, January 15, 2018

A Family Man 2016


     Dane Jensen works for a headhunter company owned by Ed Blackridge.  Ed is thinking of retiring and tells Dane and his work partner Lynn Vogel that there will be a competition between them.  Ed wants to see who can make the most money each month.  The winner will take over as the manager of the firm.  Dane and Lynn arrange jobs for engineers and each team has several workers.  Dane is very driven and determined to win this position.  Elise is his wife and they have three children.  Elise begins to question the amount of time Dane spends at work versus family time.  Dane and Elise receive a real shake up when their ten-year-old son Ryan is diagnosed with leukemia. 
     Dane is ruthless in his job and the bottom line is the numbers every month.  There are a LOT of times you want to shake Dane and tell him he only has one chance with his marriage and his children.  They are growing up every day and he’s not there to be a part of their lives.  How will Dane help Elise or Ryan struggle through the hospital treatments when all he does is work and sleep?  Dane needs to learn that honesty and an authentic life are very important.  3* (This movie is OK)

108 min, Drama directed by Mark Williams with Alison Brie, Gerard Butler, Willem Dafoe, Dustin Milligan, Gretchen Mol, Alfred Molina, Kathleen Munroe, Anupam Kher, Julia Butters, Mayko Nguyen, Mimi Kuzyk.

Note:  Imdb 6.5 out of 10, 13% critic 63% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 2*, Amazon 4.2* out of 5* with 101 reviews, Metacritic 21 out of 100 with 7 critics.
Special Note:  Filmed in Chicago and Naperville, Illinois; Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  Gerard Butler used to spend summers as a teenager in Toronto.  He enjoyed working on this project and he thought about living there again.  Butler was also the producer of this film.  The original title was The Headhunter’s Calling.  Screenwriter Bill Dubuque was a corporate headhunter for 12 years.

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