Kiss the Sky (1998)

Dreadful script sinks a good cast. I'm sure the story is serious enough, and I regret that I couldn't hang in there long enough to see Terrence Stamp. And they call women whiny! I can see how Gary Cole got the part he had in "Office Space." He whines exceptionally well, which is all this script gives him to do until he falls down the recapturing-his-youth rabbit hole.Gary Cole plays a nearly suicidal attorney whose best friend, played by William Petersen, takes on as his rescue project, having been through his own nervous breakdown earlier. The first half hour does not reward with much but a headache. The script to that point apparently never met a class, age or ethnic stereotype it didn't want to exploit, employing only the choicest clichés available. It has no emotional depth, but if it was meant to be satirical, it also lacks the wit to pull that off.This is "Save the Tiger" as a buddy road flick. That movie gave me a headache too, but I was able to sit through it, because it had the one thing going for it this one didn't, at least in the first half hour, i.e. decent writing.There are so many other movies and plays that have handled this topic with better grace, even when showing middle-aged men behaving badly.If I can skip the first half hour, I may be persuaded to sit through it to catch Terrence Stamp's performance, but I'm afraid of what lurks behind that curtain.My one word review: Blecchh!

I picked up this movie because I have become interested in the career of Willim L. Petersen and wanted to see as much of his film work as possible.I have read the comments here and do not agree that this is mostly a man's movie. I am a 50 year old woman and have spent some time questioning my life choices over the past year. I enjoyed seeing the mid-life crisis issue from a man's perspective; sort of like I had been allowed into a secret club for a little while. Clearly men and women are just wired up differently, making communication difficult if not impossible at times. I am tickled to have had access to this little glimpse of the way some men think and feel.As for William Petersen, well, the role of Jeff was a good role for him, allowing him to be charming and gritty at the same time. Anyone who is interested in Petersen's acting will enjoy this movie for that alone.

I rented this movie as part of a personal film festival on the theme of "Whatever-Became-Of the Principals of 'Desert Hearts (1985).'" In this case, I wanted to see the recent movies of Patricia Charbonneau, who as one of the reviewers said, still looks great.I am a woman in her late 30's, so it was hard to relate to the subject matter. The movie is about two very successful, upper middle class men in their late 40's who are decent guys and have loving families, but who nonetheless feel absolutely empty. It was good to read the user comments to see that the theme had resonance with middle-aged, successful men. (Yikes, I thought, is it really that bad to be a white guy who, at least by appearances, seems to have it all?)Net-net, I'd recommend the movie since it touches on a theme that apparently has resonance with a significant portion of the population, which is obviously not appreciated by those not in that segment.

It is no secret that many forty-something men are dissatisfied with their lives. And it is no big new plot story for them to run off from their married lives to pursue some new life of enlightenment and adventure. For those reviewers that panned this movie, that's all they got out of it. And if that's all there were to this movie, they'd be right to pan it.Jeff and Marty are very close to each other. It would be impossible for either one of them to act without the other, at least when they start out. They have such a bond that when the much younger love interest shows up, they find a way to share her. The three way sex scenes are tastefully done, and Andy (the delicious Sheryl Lee) is clearly seduced by the idea of having two men in a sense of fun.But they aren't the same guy. This movie is all about how they play off each other. The self-assured Jeff shows just the right amount of vulnerability, and the diffident Marty shows the right amount of insight. These two guys are different parts of a conflicted soul, too complex for a friendly Dutch monk (Terence Stamp) to guide.A movie for adults.