Friday
09Jan
Movie Review - 'Not Easily Broken'
Friday, January 9, 2009 at 1:00AM | Not Easily Broken
Starring Morris Chestnut, Taraji P. Henson and Jennifer Lewis  |
As I watched
Not Easily Broken, I wondered what it all meant. There was drama, there was conflict, there was even resolution, but in the service of what? What's your story, morning glory?
As near as I can tell, it's roughly a year in a man's life. It's a turbulent year, but he never strays that far from being the man he is at the beginning of the movie. Through narration, David Johnson (Morris Chestnut) tells us that he and his wife Clarice (Taraji P. Henson) had big plans on their wedding day. She was going to be a real estate mogul and he was going to be a Major League Baseball player. A leg injury ruined his shot at the big time, although Clarice worked very hard and achieved great things in real estate.
Over a decade later, there's a huge disparity in their marriage. She makes the money, and he runs a small construction company. It's so small we never see him work, in fact. David feels the pressure of not being the breadwinner, and he spends time with two friends (Eddie Cibrian and Kevin Hart), coaching little league baseball, shooting hoops, and avoiding the real problems of his life.
On the way to an awards ceremony honoring Clarice's hard work, for which David is inexcusably late, they're invovled in a serious accident and Clarice has to undergo months of physical therapy. It tests their marriage, all right, but not as much as having the mother-in-law (Jennifer Lewis) move in. The set-up would actually make for a better sitcom than what I believe this is, a spiritual message about men being true to themselves and the women who love them.
Reader Comments (1)
This is in response to Colin Boyd's review of Not Easily Broken. I will admit that this movie did not pack the punch I had expected, but I believe the message was clear. Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, "A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." In the beginning the minister advised Dave and Clarice to allow God to be the third person in their marriage, then they would be able to withstand the challenges in life that were sure to come. It seems they almost let those challenges end their marriage, but when they put their focus back on God, they were able to come back together. The message is to keep God first. Chestnut and Henson are great actors and if not for them, it probably would have been a bad movie. But overall the movie was good and the message was great.