Baum Reviews

Ooooooh boy…. How do I say this?  In the words of Public Enemy, ‘don’t believe the hype!’  The critics have all been gushing over this one but I failed to see anything more than a ‘good movie.’

Up in the Air plays it by the numbers and stars George Clooney as a man who fires people for companies that don’t have the scones to do it themselves.  He is a road warrior and is perfectly fine with it.  I admired this aspect of the movie… he is not miserable about his life, nice change of pace.

Where the movie lost me though, is that it plays it extremely safe and where profound developments could have taken place in the film, they never do.  To be sure, there are mild plot developments in the film but in the end they are just that, MILD.  I know how this film should have been watched and I watched it with the patience it deserved.  I just can’t, for the life of me, understand what the critics are raving about?!  People get fired A LOT in the movie so that makes it relevant to our time???  Not enough for me… perhaps following one of the recently laid off would have made the film more entertaining…