"Yeah, once."
"Did you win?"
"Well of course I won!"
"You win like money or something?
"No."
"Well, what did you win?"
"The Pulitzer."
-Jamal Wallace and William Forrester.
The great Sir Sean Connery officially announced his retirement from acting in 2003, the same year that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was released. Connery was unhappy with the making of that film, which led to his decision to retire. The movie was surprisingly dull, but Sir Sean was perfect casting as Allan Quartermain. If the film does indeed prove to be his final screen appearance, at least history will be able to say it was a great part, even if the movie itself couldn't be called that.
Before Gentlemen, though, Connery had a wonderful role in this movie as the title character, reclusive writer William 1Forrester. On a dare by friends, teenager Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown) goes into Forrester's New York apartment and, after initial hostility, Forrester offers to help Wallace with his writing skills.
This leads to an improvement in Wallace's grades at his school, as well as suspicions of plagiarism from Wallace's professor Robert Crawford (F. Murray Abraham), who is an acquaintance of Forrester.
After turning down Wallace's invitation to watch him play a basketball game at Madison Square Garden (Forrester's anxiety issues keep him from being part of a crowd), the recluse agrees to meeting with him at Yankee Stadium late on night. It is here that Forrester tells him of his personal family drama, which led Forrester to writing his book Avalon Landing.
The two fall into conflict, though, when Wallace uses the beginning of one of Forrester's essays in his class, even though he promised him that the work would never leave his apartment. This leads to Crawford accusing Wallace of plagiarism, although Wallace is told that the charge will be dropped if he wins the state championship, which he does not!
But this does not stop Wallace from writing an essay to Forrester about friendship, which Forrester receives thanks to Wallace's brother Terrell (Busta Rhymes).
This leads to Forrester reading the essay himself at a school contest, which results in great applause from the audience. He also reveals to Crawford that Wallace had permission from him to submit his previous essay. As a result, the plagiarism charge against Wallace is dropped, to Crawford's chagrin.
A year later, Wallace learns that Forrester died of cancer. His lawyer (Matt Damon) informs Wallace that Forrester has left him the manuscript for another novel and wants Wallace to write the foreword for it.
When the movie was released, Connery told Roger Ebert that the movie was similar to his classic film The Man Who Would Be King (1975) in that, at its heart, it was a story of friendship. Indeed, the real meat of this story comes from the friendship which forms between Forrester and Wallace, in the same way that King's greatness comes from the friendship between the characters played by Connery and Sir Michael Caine.
It is also nice seeing Connery share the screen again with Abraham, as the two previously acted together in The Name of the Rose (1986).
The only complaint I have with the film is that Anna Paquin doesn't have much to do as Wallace's classmate Claire Spence. I suppose this was better, though, then having her and Wallace go through the motions of often found in dramas about schools.
I must also say that this movie, while given limited release, redeemed its director Gus Van Sant as his previous film was the ill-fated remake of Psycho (1998).
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