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| Source: Wikipedia |
Math is easy, but bad boy Will Hunting can't solve his own problems. He's brimming with talent -- at drinking, picking fights, getting arrested, defending himself in court, and using a Boston accent with a straight face. He can speedread at the pace of coked-up lighting, and he retains information like a mechanical elephant running off a six-foot stack of solid state drives.
To prevent the former skillset from conflicting with the latter, the Boston boffins place the blue-collar wunderkind in therapy. It doesn't work. The problem must be solved by an actor we recognize. Is that -- Robin Williams?!
Yes, no longer goofy, and he obliterates protocol and the patient-therapist relationship to talk rough on the same level. He counters book-smarts and street smarts with real smarts, been-there-felt-that-burned-the-T-shirt smarts. This process occasionally generates positive results, on the rare occasions the reluctant genius considers his brain's potential instead of pickling it in alcohol. Predictably, this attitude complicates the first and only equal friendship of his life.
As he's paying off dumb friends to flunk prestigious interviews, the ingenious idiot snags the attention and affections of a bright girl. Doesn't take too long to get around to snogging and shagging, most likely to exchange various genius juices.
But the man doesn't change his ways. It takes a combination of friendly estrogen, mutual therapy with Robin Williams (what wouldn't I give to have...), and his blue-collar best buddy to shake him out of his stupid stupor. (Yes, it's sentimental, even predictable. But it made this list, didn't it?)
Apparently a manly sobbing session with a substitute father can change a life. Or, if not turn it in the opposite direction, at least at a skew angle.
All the king's therapists and mathematician professors and NSA representatives cannot replicate the results of one spoonful of sincerity. Doesn't take a genius to figure that out.
126 minutes.
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