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0It's a bad movie that only a parent could love.
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25The film is so busy that every minute is exhausting. It's as if the filmmakers were idealistic teen-agers afflicted with a group case of Attention Deficit Disorder.
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30It’s a heart-tugging scenario undermined by a striking hypocrisy: obscuring a hot-button issue in casting, some actors with Down's syndrome have minor roles, while Penn plays the lead -- and chews the scenery.
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25The film means well, but each scene gets clobbered by sappy screenwriting.
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20Is this what Sean Penn has come to in his 40s? He hasn't appeared this retarded since he was married to Madonna.
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38There's only one excuse for the sentimental and ham-handed I Am Sam, and it's not to tout the rights of the mentally disabled.
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10In one of the year's most woefully manipulative and oppressively pandering offerings: I Am Sam, a dolled-up TV movie-of-the-week masquerading as profound cinema.
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25It's a difficult issue, one that is not well served by a hollow confection like I Am Sam.
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30I Am Sam is about as connected to the real world as Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham, from which its title is derived -- in fact, in the realism department, Seuss may have the edge.
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38The film's one realistic performance is that of Dakota Fanning as Lucy, whose child's shame, fear and resourcefulness ground the movie in recognizable behavior. She breathes air into this suffocating enterprise.
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33This isn't an ordinary film built on a remarkable performance; it's a poor one with a gem at its core. Penn can elevate it to mediocrity, but he cannot make it fly.
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30Contrived, manipulative and shamelessly sentimental, this film is notable for the courageous reach of Sean Penn, who gives a bold, heartfelt performance.
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0Penn's portrayal strikes me as equally insensitive. It's the nightmare performance of 2001.
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30Pfeiffer, enormously likable in the role, almost saves the movie. [28 Jan 2002, p. 90]
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25Drawn out and dishonest in equal measure, Sam fights it out with "The Majestic" for the title of worst "important" movie of the year.
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10An especially insipid example of the Hollywood message movie.
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0Actual concussive cranial abuse would be preferable to Jessie Nelson's I Am Sam.
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30Well-intentioned but ludicrous tale.
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20The movie that Disney uses to explore this premise drips with so much corporate good-neighbor syrup, you might want to wear something waterproof. And Penn's performance is, at best, ripe for discussion.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 38 out of 47
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Mixed: 6 out of 47
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Negative: 3 out of 47
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I agree the movie was pretty cheesy and tacky for its taste but seriously, "I am Sam" doesn't deserve this much hate.
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SaraiV.10This is the best movie ever!
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10