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The Ringer (2005)
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Movie Review by Zara 
May 16th, 2007
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I Can Say Retarded as an Adjective and You Can't
Listen up, because my opinion is more important than your opinion when it comes to this movie. I work with people with developmental disabilities (the PC way to lump together everything from mild mental retardation to autism to CP to Downs' Syndrome.)
One of the biggest problems that I had with the movie wasn't the movie itself. It was the way that people reacted to it before they'd even seen it. Those self-righteous idiot f*cks out there in the world who think that they know what's best for people with disabilities. That they don't know when they're getting made fun of, don't know what movies they really want to watch, that they need to be protected from "crap like this."
I say that if you don't have a family member with a disability or you don't in some way directly work with individuals who do, you need to shut your f*cking trap about something that you don't know about.
The movie doesn't make fun of people with disabilities. In no way does it condescend to anyone involved in the Special Olympics. In fact, it has a very strong and positive reenforcement of the fact that just because someone has a disability doesn't make them deaf, dumb and blind to what's going on around them. These are real people who can make their own decisions. Everyone needs to stop trying to be a mommy and/or daddy and think that they need to have them made for them.
That said, the movie is good but not great. It has a strong heart, a positive message but it also doesn't quite know what to do with itself outside of the scam that Knoxville is running on the SO. Adding in an unnecessary romance is uncomfortable and awkward. Whenever they focus more on the bonding that goes on between Johnny and the other athletes, that's where the movie excels.
As a sidenote, the band that plays at the end of the movie is a real one. I saw them at a local bar about 3 months after this movie was released on DVD. They were ecstatic about being in it and talked to the patrons after performing, explaining that they were just as irritated with people not liking the movie as well.
More or less, I guess I'm just in the mood to point out that if you don't have firsthand direct knowledge about something, perhaps you shouldn't judge before getting your feet wet.
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 | Lisa
May 16, 2007 4:51 PM
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| I found the movie to be good in parts, I coulda done without the romance too. |
 | Amy
May 21, 2007 8:43 AM
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| I also work "in the business" and I love this movie. I work in a State Instution for the Mentally Retarded and when I brought the DVD in to watch my supervisor got really pissed untill she sat down and saw how the movie portrayed the people in the S.O. I also thought they could have focused less on the romance and more on the bonding between Knoxville and the other athletes, but this is one of the few movies that shows people with Developmental Disabilities in a realisitic light. |
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