You can stunt cast a movie all you want, but there’s not an actor alive or dead that could make this self-help slop work.
Writer/director John Herzfeld clumsily weaves a story with an unwieldy number of plot lines and characters, many of whom were inspired by a motivational book, “Reach Me,” written by an enigmatic author.
It’s the kind of film where all sorts of diverse characters with no reason to ever meet are brought together by some MacGuffin. It is the kind of film that Paul Haggis has turned out with some highs and lows (see “Crash,” don’t see “Third Person”). It’s the kind of film where everything needs to go right, with all the pieces falling exactly into place (it doesn’t).
“Reach Me” is built around generic characters — a rapper (Nelly), a cop (Thomas Jane), a gangster (Tom Sizemore), an arsonist recently out of jail (Kyra Sedgwick), a reporter (Kevin Connolly) and his jerk publisher (Sylvester Stallone) — not to mention a ton of other characters played by the likes of Kelsey Grammer, Terry Crews, Danny Aiello (easily the best part of the movie) and Ryan Kwanten — who are brought together in unbelievable ways by this book. It’s author, Teddy Raymond (Tom Berenger) wants to avoid any kind of stardom, which is being pursued by Connolly’s Roger at the behest of Stallone’s Gerald. Why? You’ll have to subject yourself to the misery that is watching this muddling mystery unflop on screen for 90 or so minutes.
