People Like Us

2012 movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Some nondescript guy named Sam has all kinds of financial problems and no fighting robots to help him out of his jams. He finds out that his father dies, and although he does everything he can to miss the old man's funeral, he is curious to find out if he was left any cash. Unfortunately, a large chunk of money was left to some boy he's never heard of. Sam investigates and discovers that that boy is the son of a woman who might be a sister he never knew he had. So naturally, he flirts with her.

I like riding on planes because it forces me to watch a movie that I otherwise wouldn't watch. I wasn't thrilled to get this one, but I didn't figure it would matter anyway since I was traveling with a toddler. Luckily for me, Buster didn't had so much interest in the woman trying to read and then sleep in the window seat, and I could just let her take care of herself. I kept trying to place the nondescript actor playing the nondescript protagonist of this. He has the type of face which made me think he's somebody I should know, like he's the next big thing or something. I looked him up. Apparently, he's Captain Kirk and the guy on the runaway train with Denzel Washington. His character here is strange, almost a stalker, and his charming ways really do make it seem like he's flirting with a gal he knows is his half-sister. There's no way that the half-sister, played by the mundane and probably-too-polished-for-this-role Elizabeth Banks, wouldn't think that. But Chris Pine doesn't have much range at all. That picture up there is pretty much all he does except sometimes he does it in a sadder way. And then there's Michelle Pfeiffer who doesn't seem old enough to be Captain Kirk's mom, but I'm sure she is. This is a a nice enough story, apparently based on a true story, but the whole thing is almost painfully comfortable. It's an elevator music kind of movie, criminally pleasant, and I'm really surprised that I was able to stay awake during it.