Gentlemen, lock up your girlfriends... Brad Pitt is back in town. Now he is playing the mysterious Joe Black in the very interesting film, Meet Joe Black. This movie really had something to appeal to just about everyone, even guys who hate Brad Pitt. If you like intrigue, then you will definitely like Meet Joe Black.
Joe Black (Brad Pitt) and his tourguide, Bill Parish (Anthony Hopkins)
William Parish (Anthony Hopkins), Bill for short, is a 64 year old millionaire (actually from the looks of his house, he is probably a billionaire) and the Chairman of the Board of some communications company that he founded. Old Bill is getting pretty tired and the stress filled life he has lead has caused him to hear voices. It starts out by him just hearing "Yeeeeesssssss." But it persists until he carries out an entire conversation with this voice. Meanwhile, his daughter Susan (Claire Forlani) meets a mysterious and charming man in a coffee shop, we never hear his name but we know by his locks of gold that he is Brad Pitt. When they leave the coffee shop they go their seperate ways and take turns looking back at the other... finally Brad's charater looks back while in the middle of the street and (I swear to God) gets hit by a van and flung into the air where he is hit by a taxi cab. Now right here I was suprised watching this in the theater because I saw the leading man get killed in the street (and their is no doubt by this wreck that he isn't dead). Anyway, finally Bill's voice confronts him and tells him that the "Yeeeeesssss" he keeps hearing is the answer to his question of whether he is going to die, and the reason the voice knows the answer is because he is death himself. Then death steps out and he is... Brad Pitt? Well aparently death decided to kill Brad and take his body to take a holidy with Bill as a kind of tour guide, and as long as death isn't bored he won't take Bill away yet. So death stays for dinner and meets Bill's other daughter Allison (Marcia Gay Harden), her husband Quince (Jeffrey Tambor), and Drew (Jake Weber) Bill's right hand man in the company. When these guests want to know deaths name Bill calls him Joe... Joe Black, so that is the name of death.
Death and his girlfriend (Claire Forlani)
So then Joe and Bill have fun together, sort of, and everybody's happy. Except that eventually Joe and Susan fall in love with each other, Drew has helped orchestrate a hostile takeover of Bill's company and Allison has been planning the "party of the century" for Bill's 65th Birthday Bash and no one seems to give a damn. All of these cause major strains between Joe and Bill, Susan and Bill, obviously Drew and Bill, and Allison and Bill. Of course everybody ends up happy in time for the party... except for Drew because his plan is foiled and he is fired... that is everyone is happy until Joe decides it is time to take Bill away now.
Bill dances with his youngest daughter
Now looking at that condensed plot summary it would seem that Meet Joe Black wouldn't be very long... but it is. Somehow out of this very small bit of plot (and this really is all of the plot), the writers managed to make a 3 hour and 15 minute movie. Luckily for them, that is the only real major flaw of this film... it's length. Like Titanic, it doesn't really seem all that long (that is unless you drank a huge thing of Coke in the first 30 minutes), and you actually find yourself interested in this little soap opera involving death and Bill. This movie had a great message about how you should live life striving for passion in everything you do, and try to have no regrets when it is all through. It also showed how great a man (or woman) can be if he (or she) lives his (or her) life with honor. Not to mention that the acting of the two leading men was sensational (and that is a lot coming from a guy who really has no appeal for Brad Pitt at all), and Claire Forlani did a very good job with her first major role. This movie even has something that will make Brad Pitt hater want to see this... HE GETS HIT BY A CAR!!! And I don't mean a little bump, he goes flying in the air and then goes SPLAT on the pavement. And if you want to leave after Brad gets hit by the car, trust me you will earn major points with a significant other by sticking it out, and you might actually be suprised by the interesting ending.
