Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Arashpit A movie to remember. This movie is a unique movie in terms of depicting:1. Death is not just a concept! 2. How children in Africa are feeling it early on. 3. Makes good contrast with western world 4. Reminder that America and most American people are a sympathetic and awesome nation.It has probably not received the attention it deserves, because of budget restriction, and the lack of population's attention catcher!! but still a great movie. Nicely and realistically played by actors and actress, with smart dialogues, contrasting western world and third world. Highly recommended.

eddie_baggins While its very much cut from the same cloth as films like The Blind Side and its story reeks of Hollywood sap, you'd be hard pressed to not find enjoyment in this based around real life stories The Good Lie, a film that more than likely bypassed cinemas near you upon release last year and failed to find an audience in any capacity.Produced by the Academy Award winning team of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, The Good Lie certainly has pedigree behind it and with the true story of The Lost Boys Of Sudan as its base, it's hard to know exactly why the film failed so dismally when it was rolled out towards the later end of last year.Reviewed well and rated highly by audiences, one suspects that The Good Lie has the potential to be a slowly building sleeper hit in the years to come and with a tale so easy to like as this, it will be a film that brings both smiles and tears to many different people the world over even though its somewhat twee handling can hamper the films emotional engagement and some scripting scenario/acting turns dampen the films overall quality.The biggest success found within the Good Lie lays entirely on how central group of uprooted refugees led by Arnold Oceng's determined Mamere and Ger Duany's God fearing Jerimiah adapt to life in the land of opportunity in America. There's simple joys to be found in the sincere questioning these kind hearted souls ask and director Philippe Falardeau does a great job of handling his largely unknown cast in the way in which this is portrayed. The top billing of Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon is a little bit of marketing ploy here as a warning as she is largely a bit part player to the Sudanese squad and her role is a little too much "Sandra Bullock" to really work.An enjoyable, often funny and occasionally moving tale with call backs to real life trials over adversity, The Good Lie never becomes anything akin to other classic such tales but it's certainly a film worth tracking down. A quality production that deserved more credit than it ever got upon release, The Good Lie is just the type of Hollywood ilk that we need more of.3 1/2 McDonalds trips out of 5

3xHCCH In the 1980s there was a major civil war in the Sudan causing several children to lose their families. Left on their own devices, these kids had to travel hundreds of miles in order to reach safe haven beyond the border. This film follows the story of one such set of displaced and orphaned children, dubbed by aid workers and media as "The Lost Boys of Sudan". After their eldest brother Theo sacrificed himself to be captured by soldiers, Mamere and his sister Abital were able to reach the refugee camp in Kenya on their own, together with another set of brothers they met along the way, Jeremiah and Paul. Several years later, all four of them, now young adults, were luckily picked to be among those to be relocated to the United States. In Kansas City, Missouri, the boys met employment counselor Carrie Davis, who helped them settle in their new home and find jobs. There, they discovered not only new comforts of life and new opportunities, but also new challenges they had to face. While Mamere worked hard to go to medical school, he constantly worried about his sister Abital who was separated from him at the airport and sent to live in Boston with a foster family. Deeper down, he also continued to be haunted by the sacrifice his brother Theo did for them to live.Reese Witherspoon gets top billing, but she is not the main character of the film at all. Her Carrie goes out of her way to help the Sudanese boys get settled into their new lives. She helps them solve various problems by pulling some bureaucratic strings. But it is still the boys themselves, particularly Mamere, who make the big decisions in their lives. Despite her star status, Witherspoon never drew attention to herself in this role. She gracefully gives her African co-stars the spotlight they deserved.Arnold Oceng plays the lead character Mamere with dignified restraint. It is his performance upon which the whole movie revolved around. He was able to gain our sympathy towards his plight and the various demons he had to face. The actors who played Abital (a radiant Kuoth Wiel), Jeremiah (Ger Duany) and Paul (Emmanuel Jal) all suffered through the Sudanese Civil War in real life, thus accounting for the affecting authenticity in their performances. The young actors who played these characters as child refugees were similarly very effective in their portrayals. Honestly I was not too excited to see this film thinking it would be another one of those "White Savior" films like "The Blind Side" or "Dangerous Minds", where a white man saves a poor person of color out of his miserable condition. At the end though, my fears were unfounded. This turned out to be quite engaging despite its very serious topic. Aside from some awkward moment of humor in the middle as the brothers were adjusting to American life which felt forced, the rest of the film with its theme of brotherly devotion was heartwarming and inspirational. While its overwhelming positivity is wonderful, it may also be seen by some as its main drawback. 7/10.

skanz This film did not have a theatre release here in my country, it came out on DVD today. I had seen the trailer and was looking forward to it. I had read several comments criticising the film for being about white people heroically and selflessly saving the black people. Even the IMDb web page says "their encounter with an employment agency counsellor forever changes all of their lives." Reese Witherspoon is the star attraction so people will notice the film, but she is not the main character of the story, her's is a supporting role, which she does well. If anything the encounter with the Sudanese refugees changes her character's life forever. On an emotional level the film is deeply affecting. The employment agency agent or the charity representative would have had more depth and connection if one or the other was played by an American woman of African descent. There is a tribal link between white Americans and Sudanese people but it is so far back as to be far beyond the longest oral tradition. I guess it was contrast rather than convergence the film maker wanted- their choice.The brutality of the war in Sudan is not graphically portrayed as violence often is in modern films. Graphic violence has a tendency to shut down the viewers empathy- a defensive measure I suppose. Without plastic guts and synthetic gore to be shocked at and to immunise us from the pain of others, the viewer starts to care about the family and their ordeal. I started seriously leaking water at one point, and kept springing leaks at numerous points thereafter. As a male, I do this very very rarely, and watching films, at most brim a bit, I never ever suffer rivulets down cheeks until now. I needed tissues. Tissues! The fish out of water comedy was gentle and the characters were not made out as ignorant or gullible, but eager and quick to learn. What they have to learn from first world culture is superficial however, just like the culture. More important is what they have to teach us first worlders. But to learn first you have to acknowledge there is something you can learn from uneducated poor people from a third world country. I think the film makers did just that.