Fences (2016)

Fresh and Exciting

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

'Fences' is a reasonably good drama film that benefits from some excellent acting performances, especially from Denzel Washington as lead character Troy. It's a raw and realistic film that focuses heavily on character and story development and dialogue. Normally this would be good to see, but 'Fences' goes overboard and the excessive dialogue and running length works to the film's disadvantage.Many of the scenes of extended dialogue have little or no significance to the storyline and the film wouldn't have suffered if they had just been cut out altogether. The characters are also difficult to connect and sympathise with, especially Washington's character Troy, even though this is a character-driven drama. As a result it can be a struggle to stay interested for the full duration of the film, and I must admit that I found myself drifting off on more than one occasion.

I was hoping better from Denzel, the movie was very depressing.

The main feature of this movie is the superb acting of all the performers including the richness of the dialogues, Sometimes we feel not to be watching a movie but to be peering through some keyhole or a window at a real family life. The main characters are a couple of strong personalities, the wife a good spouse and the husband a man with a character with positive and negative deeds. All of them are black but besides some spoken words they utter now and then we don't feel much racial tension but not its exclusion either. This movíe is full of life, love, drama, solidariry and friendship. It is much moving and makes you be well with yourself after watching it.

Troy is a middle-aged garbage collector in 1950s Pittsburgh. Though he gets some enjoyment from life, he is rather bitter about his past, and brings that along into his relationship with his teenage son Cory, with wife Rose doing her best to mediate between them. Life isn't wonderful, but it could get worse... The story in this film is set up in the trailer, but there is a development at the two-thirds point which comes as a surprise, and which drives developments up to the end of the film.Having said that, the plot is secondary: this film is primarily a character study. As the film progresses, we learn how Troy became the man he is: cognisant of his responsibilities as a family man, loving, bullying, kind, controlling, narrow-minded and long-sighted - in short, full of the contradictions which make every one of us a human being.Denzel Washington, directing and starring in the film version of the play which he and co-star Viola Davis played successfully on Broadway, controls this film both behind and in front of the camera. It is a brilliant performance. By the time this film is finished, you love this man and despise him at the same time, attitudes which are shared by his son Cory.But every member of the cast is exemplary. Viola Davis deserved her Oscar nomination, but I greatly like Mykelti Williamson, playing a part which is some distance from his usual range.My sole reservation is that the film is somewhat depressing: despite his positive notes, Troy isn't a very likeable man, and he carries a great deal of not very likeable baggage with him. But that is not the point of this story, it IS this story. And it's a story which is worth seeing for the performances alone.