I am a man! A man's review of Les Miserables

I am a man (not 40 like coach), I like man things.  I like Duck Dynasty, I like to fish (caught one last week), I even like hunting (although I don't do that much).  I drive a very large truck in a city that is not very accommodating for trucks.  I wear boots with almost every outfit I own.  I have a real tree camo UK hat.  I like SEC football and The Civil War.  I AM A MAN!

However, I recently watched Les Miserables for the first time.  Let me be clear, I knew very little about the musical prior to watching it.  I knew it had something to do with the French Revolution.  While I do not care much for French history, I do like military history.  I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  So here is my manly, unbiased, review of this movie.  Yes, I did the American thing and watched the movie instead of seeing the play.

(Im just saying....)

Alright, so here is the skinny.  I do not see how Anne Hathaway won Best Supporting Actress. Don't get me wrong, Anne was good, probably great.  The problem is she was only in the movie like 25 minutes total.  That might be a generous allotment, too.  She is barely in the movie.  Russell Crowe plays Javert, and he is pretty bad. I give him credit for having the "courage" to do this movie, but he isn't very good.  Borat is in the movie....basically playing Borat.  He is pretty good.  However, to me, Hugh Jackman absolutely steals the show.  He plays Jean Valjean, a character that most men could relate to.  He did an outstanding job, seriously.

Here is the bad (other than Russell Crowe)...they sing through the ENTIRE movie.  Now don't give me the  "duh, Boomer, its a musical!" crap.  Most musicals that I am aware of, Tommy, Camelot, Showboat, (that's the extent of my musical knowledge thanks to Trinity High School English department) have dialogue, song, dialogue, song.  This entire movie is singing, and its actually sort of distracting.  At least it was for me.  I also wanted to take a shower as a result of this movie.  These people, almost all of them, were disgusting.  Also, the more I watched it, the less I cared about their revolution, and realized I wasn't entirely sure what they were fighting for?  I think this is mainly because I was over thinking my AP Western Civ class (again, thanks to Trinity), but I ultimately really didn't care about a bunch of college hippies. I actually was somewhat sympathetic to Javert, who was just doing his job.  Even Jean Valjean admits this very fact.  I sort of felt like the movie/musical was sort of a mess.

There was good though, mainly Wolverine Jean Valjean.  What a great character arc, what a great performance.  Three scenes stuck out to me, two which dealt with the same subject.  Jean Valjean had been living a life of crime for stealing bread...seriously.  Anyway, about the time he is going to be sent back to jail he is saved by a Catholic Bishop (Myriel).  The Bishop covers for Jean and keeps him from going back to jail.  As a result of this, Jean dedicates his life to God and to living a better life.  Which, to his credit, he does.  I liked the fact that this event and intervention (from a Catholic), really steered him in the right direction.   This is something that many of us can relate to.   

Now, here comes the two scenes that I loved.  Through a series of events, Jean Valjean takes the above blond hair, blue eyed girl, (not Baylor Grace) under his wing to raise.  He realizes he is now a father, and everything has changed.  The world is "full of grace, full of light." Everything he had done wrong, was gone.  Happiness was his because of her.  His only fear, is failing her.  Can't every parent relate to this? Hasn't every father to a little girl gone through this very same thing!?  The moment you hold your child, the moment you hold your girl, for the first time....it changes everything.  So here I am, a self proclaimed "mans man," on an airplane...fighting back the tears because this is exactly how I feel about my girls.  This scene really got to me, one of my favorites of the entire movie.

The second scene happened right towards the end of the movie. This is when his adopted (aforementioned) daughter comes to find her father, who is sick.  Jean Valjean proclaims that all he has done in his life, which was a lot of good, SHE was the best thing he did.  He considered her a blessing in this crazy world, and now that she was next to him, he could die in peace.  It actually was a beautiful scene, very moving.  

All in all it was worth watching, but I don't get all the fuss.  I gave you about 10 minutes out of a 2.5 hour movie.  I suppose those 10 minutes wouldn't have been meaningful without sitting through the other 150 minutes.  

Now, I need to go do something manly.