28 Days (2000)

Strong and Moving!

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Good concept, poorly executed.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This is an appeal for assistance. When we watched "28 Days" recently, we had the strong sensation that we had seen it before but with a different cast. Has it been remade? If so as what? And where? Thank you!Writing a review isn't easy. Spoiler alert!? Scenes at the beginning and end were particularly striking as being virtually identical. As the story unfolded early on, we asked each other, "Haven't we seen this before?" "Yes," we said, "but Sandra Bullock wasn't in it." We would definitely would remember her!" "And wasn't her character blonde in the version we saw before?" Well, maybe that point is a little less clear.I have spent hours looking through listings of films about rehab. Other search strategies have driven me crazy with irrelevant results.Please help!

Newspaper writer somehow has the time and energy between assignments to be a booze-swilling, pill-popping, sexually loose ne'er-do-well who is an embarrassment to her prim and proper sister; she enters rehab as an alternative to jail after hijacking a limousine drunk and driving it into someone's house. Lousy star-vehicle for Sandra Bullock, one loaded down with pop tunes to fill the gaps and an initially condescending view of rehabilitation patients as touchy-feely morons prone to singing and easy crying. Director Betty Thomas wants to have it both ways: to cynically view the 12-step system through Sandra's eyes and also show that the system works in order to better Bullock's character. The film is a laughless morass ultimately tailed to its star (designed to show off her many sides, her sass and pathos, etc.), but Sandra Bullock as an actress runs hot and cold. I admired her star-making performance in "Speed", and she was too cute for words in "While You Were Sleeping", but she cannot carry a would-be weighty character study like this alone--and neither Thomas nor screenwriter Susannah Grant provides her with any help. Elizabeth Perkins plays Bullock's sister with a pinched mouth and a glare of disapproval, to show us how pity can evolve into hatred; however, this is hardly a person for Bullock's character to aspire to be. Perkins looks as bad off as her sibling, but with the caveat that she's been groomed with money. * from ****

The only real good thing about this movie is Sandra Bullock. As a whole the film suffers from a too easy-going approach: the characters are too one-dimensional, the humor is lame, the flashbacks are cheap and repetitive and the story is presented in a rather simplistic and unrealistic manner. A film like this should pay much more attention to character development. Here, all the players live out their assigned shallow personalities. I don't know why they casted Mortensen for the sports guy character, he just doesn't deliver. The British accomplish of Bullock is too smooth and we know next to nothing about the roommate who story-wise makes such a big impact. Steve Buscemi is forgettable.The movie is entertaining enough however and never too predictable. As said, Bullock shines; she is perfectly cast for the role of uninhibited party animal struggling to confront the world and its residents. What else? Elizabeth Perkins. Yeah...

This movie should have never been marketed as a comedy. I don't remember any jokes or funny scenes. Literally.When Gwen (Sandra Bullock), checks into rehab - she would have went through at least 3-4 days of hardcore withdrawal (in the film, she vomits once and appears to have 1 or 2 panic attacks that only last a few minutes). True detox will have you on the toilet, getting sick from both ends, for days and days, no letting up. Some rehabs will medicate you to ease some of the symptoms, but you still go through it. This movie simply did NOT show the real side of what happens to an alcoholic who suddenly stops drinking, or an addict who stops using. From that point on, I couldn't take the movie seriously. Perhaps, if they HAD shown the true side of withdrawal, before jumping into the actual rehab, it would have been more of a cautionary tale.