MovieChat Forums > Dreamrider (1993) Discussion > Anyone else find the acting a little on ...

Anyone else find the acting a little on the 'bland' side?

posted 16 years ago by wwdotdaddy
2 replies | jump to latest

A few years ago, my mother gave me a copy of this movie. She felt that it would do me good to see the movie considering that I was just returning to life after suffering a traumatic amputation of my own left leg at the above-knee level.

It sat, unwatched, in a closet until my wife discovered it last week. Today, I popped it in to watch.

It seemed to me that the vast majority of the actors, the amputee included, didn't seem to have their hearts in their performances. While the overall storyline was a good one geared at inspiring and uplifting the downtrodden, it would have been more enjoyable had each actor given it their all in order to make them come across as being more sincere and believable. I can see why it received a rating of 4/10.

As a way of giving this movie a positive, to its credit, not one word of profanity came from the mouth of any single actor - a rarity in today's movie world. I just wish that it didn't seem like such an "8's movie".

I give it a 7/10 simply because they used a real amputee to play the title role. That at least made it a little more believable in spite of the lack of heart in the actors.

[–] ctomvelu-1 16 years ago

It would have been nice if it had turned out to be an epic journey by an ordinary man, along the lines of STRAIGHT STORY, but it would appear this was made by a religious group. If you have had any exposure to pictures made by religious groups, you know they are all very amateurishly made. And I mean every one of them. It apparently was well-intentioned but came out flat and uninspiring. The one-legged kid looked great but couldn't even get his mouth fully open to say his lines. James Earl Jones played the same character he has played in a dozen other movies, such as THE SANDLOT. The one character worthy of note was the boy's big-breasted, blonde girlfriend. She also couldn't act, but she didn't need to. All she had to do was stand there. I was surprised they hired such a babe to appear in a movie clearly intended for churches and religious channels.

[–] treeline1 14 years ago

I agree with you about the acting being pretty bland, but the man who played Bruce had never acted before (or since) and was doing the best he could. I googled Matthew Geriak and he had an interesting story - he was a star athlete before he lost his leg. Now he's a pharmacist.

The actress who played his girlfriend was a beginner, too. I don't think they had the money to hire good actors; James Earl Jones must have donated his time, maybe as a favor to a friend. I enjoyed the movie despite the acting. It was quite a story.