Return to Sender (2005)

As Good As It Gets

Absolutely Fantastic

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

First of all let me start with that i am not a supporter of the death penalty so you don't believe this would reflect on my rating.Spoilers. I gave this movie a low rating, because it's characters behaviors make no sense, no sense at all. Let me start with the female prisoner on death row. Let's go right into her shoes and speak in her voice, let us choose to say "I": Year back, in a car accident, i caused my sisters blindness and made it impossible for her, to ever have children. I feel guilty. I deserve to suffer. I deserve to pay. She hates me and rightly so. It so happens i am confused with someone who has abducted and murdered a child. I have been sentenced and will die on the electric chair.Do you buy this? I don't. Then perhaps you buy this: But i happen to know that my sister has abducted the child to keep it for herself. That child is still alive and i am the only one who knows. If i die, at least my sister i made suffer so much can be a happy mother. Okay let's say i am buying this. Let's say i find no way to commit suicide because of my deep guilt. I am simply to stupid to kill myself and spent years and years waiting to go to the electric chair. But i don't tell my lawyer to quiet trying to safe my life, appealing to the governor for instance, because that would make to much sense.Okay, let's stretch this a little further. Let's say I KNOW what's going on. I know that my sister and her husband have abducted that child. I want my sister to be happy with that child and i keep my mouth shut. Let them think i abducted that child, yeah, with my death, no one will know. Do you buy this? Can guilt be that blinding that i could forgive a sister, a child abductor and therefore an even bigger monster than the accused? I don't by into this a second.But let's say i do. Now there this guy (main character) visiting me. I want my sister to forgive me (why would i want my sister to forgive, if i don't even forgive myself?!?!) so i give that guy a letter for my sister. Why do i give that guy a letter for my sister, a sister that has vanished from the face of the earth (for her own good, as i must believe), why do i make him bringing her in the spotlight most likely, with the media so much interested in me and my affairs (something that never happens in the movie but this woman should fear of course), would i do that, no i would'nt i would want her to be forgotten. And the guy goes digging of course, because i send him digging.My lawyer should have gone digging also, but luckily my lawyer is stupid, she doesn't know how find my sister, but this guy does. Why do i believe this guy can, were even my lawyer can't?I could go on forever. The story of this movie total BS. And i hate it for it. I hate it, because there is a great, great story buried here in a totally screwed up screenplay. Even worse, this story has no moral spine. What is it about? Is it about guilt and paying, about guilt and paying over price, is it about redemption, about justice? A story needs a single moral core that makes you feel strongly. If you wanna know what i am talking about, watch "A Simple Plan" you can feel it in EVERY minute and it will give you that good old catharsis. This one, it will leave you confuse and empty :/Three stars for the acting and good atmospheric direction. For the story, well, one of the cases were writing must dump his screenplay and start FRESH at the drawing board. All elements are in place. There are just to many of them. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. Gee, i HATE laziness!

First of all this movie is excellent. Actors are brilliant (Connie Nielsen on top), plot is excellent and it even has Hollywood styled happy ending (many of you probably dislike it). Why I liked this movie so much that it's in my all time top 10 thrillers list? Because it's simple and easy to understand. This movie has no fancy special effects, no superbeautiful or superugly characters, no extreme plot turnovers nothing like that (like Harlin's Mindhunters for example). It's about ordinary people doing ordinary bad or good things to each other and it's brilliant. Like taken from real life. And once again it's brilliant. It is a really must see movie for all of you thriller fans. ENJOY!!!

I'm just writing to alert and remind everybody what really can be done with a "low budget" and independent movie like I think this one is.I love this movie, it's story, the characters, the performances of the actors. It's all great.It has a fantastic ending and I recommend everyone to see this movie.I really think that this type of picture should have more support for being done. It's the "simple" stories like this one that demonstrate the true beauty of the cinema and not the blockbusters that the main industry continues to support.I'm not saying that those shouldn't be done, because their fun.I just think that sometimes and more often, they should support the so called low budget movies so that great, fantastic, human, and simple stories like what this movie represents could come out and be seen by all the people.The fact is that with the low advertisement that is made to this type of movies, at least in my country (I presume that in the States it shouldn't be much more), only the true cinema "buffs" get the chance to find out about them and see them, and not the common person, as it should be from the start.If you really love cinema, don't forget to see this movie, because it's one of those few movies that ends and makes you keep remind about them, the plot, the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of the characters, and everything else for a long time.

Charlotte Cory (Connie Nielsen) is on death row for the kidnapping and murder of a child - but did she do it? Aidan Quinn plays an ex-defense lawyer who makes money selling the last letters of condemned prisoners to the highest bidder (apparently, such letters fetch tens of thousands of dollars). Because Cory's case is so rare, he sees the chance to make half a million dollars on her last letter. He pretends to be a friend of her father's in order to get close to her, but he ends up becoming emotionally engaged in her situation, and falling in love with her.Return To Sender is a low-key character drama, extremely well-acted, realistic, touching and just generally well-rounded. I was absorbed by it throughout, and can't think of a single thing wrong with it. It keeps the suspense going right until the satisfying end. A great achievement by everyone involved.