Good Fences

This movie was ok, but, the presense of Monique,playing HARD CORE GHETTO, as usual ruined it for me! The idea that anyone, let alone a Black woman, would leave sunny Florida to move to cold, snowy Conneticut is ridiculous! Another thing that bothered me is Whoopi's AWFUL looking wigs!

Here in 2022. Loved the 70's setting. Listen, if you aren't BLACK, just shush. You can't speak on or even hardly relate. And that's on period. I thought I would be angry that Whoopi's character rode the fence with those uppity white women...but She didn't really. She always remained true to who she was. Danny Glover's character wasn't a real black man. And that's that on that! The daughter...this fool felt that she had to have blue eyes and blonde hair in order to be accepted as beautiful...I have to remember that this setting was in the 70's. Because black women are the epitome of BEAUTY. We ARE the STANDARD. We don't fit in WE STAND OUT.

I saw this movie years ago and thought of it when discussing movies I hated the most. It is a total mess from the beginning. The ham-fisted presentation of the "message" is so bad it seems like like a campy joke. I like Spike Lee, who is the executive producer, as a director, but do not compare his films to this - not even the sloppy ones (ie She Hate Me). It reeks of poor writing, poor acting, poor directing... poor everything. This says it all: when a friend picked it for a movie night, the entire group hated it. We unanimously agreed without hesitation to fast forward through some of it while that person was in the bathroom to get it over as soon as possible. Of all the movies I've seen (I have a nearly exhaustive list), I don't think there is any one that I have disliked this much.

Given the two big stars,this was a monumental disappointment. Predictable, stale, and full of cliches Boring!

It's a very interesting story. I liked so much the character of the black husband who made it to the top of society in the late 1970s, however hates watching "Roots" or even the idea of making it as a TV series. He tasted the bitter taste of racism himself, but he wants to wind up this page forever. And when he hates his neighbor as she, from his viewpoint, offends the image that he strived to find for the black people, plus how she didn't fatigue herself making the money she got; winning it in a lottery--he'll go and burn her house. The man turned into a racist himself, yet out of fear. The fear that his "class" might be harmed because of riffraff such as this vulgar neighbor; dealing with her the same way that any fanatic racist would have dealt with him years ago. The sad thing is that this very interesting story was made so uninterestingly! The script was clumsy. I didn't feel the subject well. What's the main theme? is a question that will hunt you all the time, specifically with the idea of the "good fences" that this family was sunken in, and with having only one event that I can remember (burning the house). To tell you the truth, I felt that the movie itself doesn't know what to say, or how to say it, for most of the time. The directing was so heavy-handed. The pace is nearly dead. Some shots were really not necessary; I mean seeing the vicissitude, the days and the nights around the villa was so provocative with empty repetition as well! The movie seemed eventually like a TV movie that was crushed by the worst new wave cinema. In another word; pointless, pedant and too dull to stand. So with the presence of cinematic stars such as (Danny Glover) and (Whoopi Goldberg), it'd be more depressing. And I knew lately that this was promoted as a comic movie, with a catchline that says: "The Laughs Don't Stop in This Hilarious Comedy"??? So with that, it'd be surely more and more depressing! But for me, the most depressing thing was the meaning of this story which lost itself through long, very long, 119 minutes! I hated that Variety described the movie as "a stupefyingly clumsy mix of cartoonish comedy, simplistic satire and borderline hysterical melodrama". Because you can say all of that in fewer words: This is a bad movie!

I enjoyed this movie quite a lot. I have always been a fan of Whoopi Goldberg and this movie only emphasizes it. She portrays a housewife in an African-American family which is moving up the social chain due to the husband's (Danny Glover) success as an attorney. She moves to an all white neighborhood where the people are friendly, yet a little awkward toward her. The various events that arise during the course of the movie make for SOME laughs but mostly appeal to the other emotions. This movie is not so much a comedy as a drama. I give it a strong 8/10. I highly recommend you catch it on TV or rent it soon.

Nothing new is this tired serio-comedy that wastes the talents of Danny Glover and Whoopi Goldberg. Considering that this was produced by the stars and Spike Lee, it's pretty tame and tired stuff. And how come the Whoop never changes her hair or glasses over the many years this film covers? Blah!

I believe some of the past "critics" are delving too deep. I don't believe this movie was supposed to be a upbeat comedy of such. This is a dark comedy/drama and a portrayal of the way a specific family dealt with engaging with the white community in a time when that was not easily done. I believe the scenes with 'Mabel' showing the bored housewife over the course of many years shows how more and more depressed over the situation she has become. She has lost touch with herself, her identity, her roots. She makes a statement saying that all she has to do is "listen to Tom" instead of listening to God. The son feels as if he is out of touch with his "people" and struggles to regain that sense of himself, while the sister shows that in the end, she has rejected all that makes her Black. Tom has let the influence of his childhood (almost getting lynched, struggling against white America) influence how he acts in the present. He rejects the things that make him unique (being Black), even though those things impact everything about him daily. This movie has little to do with "racial motivations" and such. It has more to do with Blacks finding their way while not losing themselves in a predominately white world. This movie is a great movie to show the other side of the coin. Black people (and minorities of color) have to deal with trying to fit in to multiple "lives" and find a way to incorporate all of them without losing a sense of self. Danny and Whoopi did a great job of portraying this, even if it did obviously make others thumb up their noses.

I like Danny Glover. I think Whoopi Goldberg is brilliant. I thought I'd love this movie, especially since the wrapper specifically says that "the laughs don't stop in this hilarious comedy." Wrong. This was painful. We've seen aliens meet the neighbors in several forms and trailer trash meets the neighbors. When George Jefferson met Archie Bunker, it was hilarious. Surely the same story could be told in a wealthier community and be funny. This was just sad. Instead of being amused, you feel pain for Whoopi's family and pity for her unenlightened neighbors. I didn't feel that Tom's (Danny Glover) actions at the end followed either from his history (revealed, I think, too late) or from his prejudice. The lighting on Tom's face, by the way, is about as subtle as the foreshadowing in the 19th century gothic. If you can see it, it doesn't work. I've seen the racial conflicts of the 1950's-1970's done as drama (Mississippi Burning, In the Heat of the Night, A Patch of Blue) and I've seen it done as comedy (previously mentioned All in the Family, certain episodes of MASH, and any other quality show from the period). The fact that this wasn't funny has less to do with the topic than with the writing.

This movie made me feel as if I had missed some important scenes from the very beginning. There were continuity errors and plots that stopped as abruptly as they started. I was very disappointed because I love Whoopi Goldberg & Danny Glover, in addition to that have always trusted & respected Danny Glovers taste in his choice of roles, "Grand Canyon" for example. I just could not finish this movie, after what seemed an eternity, but was probably just a little over an hour; we had to turn it off. There was no comedy, there was nothing about the characters to make you empathize or sympathize with them, there was no evoking of emotion at all regarding this movie and the clips of their past were poorly edited, confusing, and unnecessary. What could have been a great idea for a movie, even as a drama & not a comedy (although I think a comedy in this situation would have been better, because I love to watch white people freak out & start acting like complete idiots, it makes me laugh) became a waste of my $1 credit at the video store.