Raise your hand if you knew Vanessa Hudgens had this kind of performance in her. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
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“Gimme Shelter” is based on the true story of a young woman trying to escape her dire situation and find the family that left her behind, and how she handles it when the family she finds isn’t the one she was expecting. Vanessa Hudgens plays “Apple”, the girl at the center of it all with actors like Brendan Fraser, James Earl Jones, and Rosario Dawson filling out the remainder of the cast. But it’s Hudgens who steals this show, not that she has much competition, but still.
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In fact, let’s just go ahead and call it, she’s the best thing about the movie. There is a real difficulty in capturing these down on your luck archetypes. You want the performance to be honest without being pandering, and I never once felt like “Apple” wasn’t a real person dealing with real issues. Speaking of real issues, I also want to give the movie props for dealing with tough ones like neglect, abuse, and even abortion and doing it without being preachy. Not that the film didn’t have a point of view on the subjects, but I never felt like it went out of it’s way to push any agendas, which is saying a lot for a movie like this. It’s because of this that some of the moments of choices in this movie managed to hit home so deeply. Usually, with a movie that has this kind of faith based set up, the emotions can seemed forced or cloying, but I found many of these moments and the messages along with them to be truly moving and beautiful.
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Notice I said many and not all, as unfortunately there were a few things that kept this movie from fully connecting. First off, despite Hudgens genuine and honest performance, many others in the film appeared to have graduated from Overacting University with a major in melodramatics and a minor in histrionics. Especially Brendan Fraser. I mean, maybe it’s a bit much to ask him to carry this kind of dramatic role, but I didn’t buy him for a second as this father coming to terms with his past. But the worst thing is that the movie seemed to occasionally get bogged down in it’s own emotion giving the overall feel of the proceedings a slower and occasionally manipulative feel. Much of the time the movie was like swimming through molasses, very slow going and a bit too syrupy sweet for it’s own good.
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At the end of the day, “Gimme Shelter” occasionally falls prey to the pitfalls of most faith based dramas, but a deft handling of tough issues and an incredible performance by Vanessa Hudgens is enough to keep it from falling below a C
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Thanks for checking out this Your Movie Friend review, stay tuned for this review’s “Best Ever” challenge here in bit but first, I’m going to put up some stuff you can click over in this area. If you’d like to subscribe, which I would much appreciate, you can do so by clicking the big gray subscribe button. Want to see more? You can click here to see reviews for Devil’s Due, That Awkward Moment, or the new Jason Reitman movie Labor Day. You can also Click the logo up here to go to yourmoviefriend.com where you can search by title for reviews. And finally this review’s “Best Ever” Challenge, where you name the best movie ever in a particular category and also try to identify my choice. This time lets figure out “the best Brendan Fraser movie ever”. He hasn’t been bad in everything right? Mine may have been one of the weakest movies to win the academy award for best picture. Easy one to Google, as the cross section of Brendan Fraser and Oscars is exactly one, but do you know it without help from the internet? Drop your own answer and a guess at mine in the comments and first person to guess mine gets a point! Thanks and don’t forget to subscribe!