Good Will Hunting (1997)

Surprised to see so many people disliked this one. Personally, as a guy who just enjoys watching a movie, this is exactly what I like to see. I couldn't care less if it's unrealistic or if the plot is obvious and you can guess the ending about an hour before it happens. This is a masterpiece, at least in my tiny and unimpressive brain.

Fmovies: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck scored quite a success with their interesting and entertaining script. The introduction and exposition sections are enormously engrossing, after which script peaks and rather coasts along the rest of the way. Yet, the casting is so well done, and the acting at such good level, that interest is nicely maintained.

What "Hunting" essentially consists of is some two dozen conversational scenes, bridged together with short transitions of physical activity. What is rather remarkable is that one isn't aware of the dramatic limitations comprising the structure. This is a real tribute to the cast, director, and of course, the script. While the basic situation is really quite far-fetched, it is made to seem plausible--again, the mark of good, convincing writing. The story behind getting the script sold and produced on the terms of the writers' preferences is fascinating. Still, one can't really call it luck, for both Damon and Affleck "paid their dues" -- and success did not just fall into their laps. These are two talented young men, with perseverance; and how wonderful for them to have achieved such success while still youthful and full of vitality.

"Good Will Hunting" is a good production, with solid craftsmanship in all departments -- thanks to the creativity of Damon and Affleck.

The name of the film always put me off watching it. Ever so glad i was convinced in to it.

Only the fact that there is so much bad language and for Titanic being released in the same year this would have swept the boards in the Oscars!

I hate Robin Williams as a comedian, but i was in tears after watching his timeless performance. I love most of the classic movies but this is definitely the best film i have ever seen

Mat Damon played a great part, showing the full spectrum of emotions in his role.

I've ever gone out and bought the soundtrack to the film, i've watched it half a dozen times and always go right through to the final credits.

Pure brilliance!

Good Will Hunting fmovies. So many personal projects of our best players never come out quite right. The vision they have somehow doesn't translate to the screen, or it's not box office subject matter, or maybe the actors aren't gifted with writing or directing talent. That's certainly not the case with Good Will Hunting which was not only the breakthrough film for Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, but it will probably remain their most personal endeavor.

Not too much imagination was required though because these guys set this film in their native Boston the city they grew up in, the city they seem to know every nook and cranny of. They didn't even have to lose the New England accents they would have to in most of their other films.

When Matt and Ben wrote Good Will Hunting the fact they were able to interest a top director like Gus Van Sant in the project should have said something before one views a frame of film. Van Sant got an Oscar nominated performance for Matt Damon and a Supporting Actor Oscar for Robin Williams as the psychologist who counsels Damon.

Will Hunting is this average lower middle class kid from South Boston who was in the foster care system and suffered a lot of abuse while growing up. He has some low level jobs, he's constantly getting in trouble with the law for minor scrapes, and he's a functioning genius who for kicks solves a highly complex mathematical equation between buffing floors at MIT.

Which perks the interest of Stellan Skarsgaard highly touted mathematics professor there. He feels and I agree with him that one of the worst sins in the world is wasting the talent the Deity blesses you with, whatever it is. After a succession of therapists who are unable to cope with Damon's genius, Robin Williams gets his turn at bat.

Robin Williams one of the wildest, wackiest, most innovative comics that ever walked the earth, drops all of that to deliver a highly sensitive performance as the psychologist who finally reaches Damon on some level. What Damon does with it is for you to see Good Will Hunting for.

Some of that breakthrough is achieved with the help of Minnie Driver, a British student at Harvard who falls hard for the blue collar Will Hunting. Most of it is achieved though in the film's key scene as Ben Affleck tells him that no matter what your IQ is, if you don't use it and move up and on, you're the stupidest guy here. It's one of Affleck's best scenes in his whole career on film.

I've known a few Will Huntings in my day, blessed with talent I would like to have had and who threw it away for a combination of reasons. One in particular I knew back in the Eighties was a kid who originally grew up in Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountain country to some really uneducated hicks. They discovered he was gay and immediately had him committed. Back in the day, they did all kinds of things to him like electroshock therapy and guess what, it all didn't work. But it left him a twisted and bitter person who gravitated to the new gay rights movement because it was something that finally validated him as a human being.

He also was blessed with an incredible baritone singing voice, he could have sang opera had that been trained instead of his parents trying to change his orientation. But when I last saw him in the middle Eighties no one had or could reach him. He made a living running a cleaning service for apartments. If he couldn't sing militant songs of protest he wasn't interested, even if he could have reac

This is the best movie I have seen since the Godfather. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck make a great team...not only as actors, but more impressively as co-writers. Add Robin Williams in perhaps his best role ever (too close to Good Morning Vietnam for me to make the call), and you have a wonderfully entertaining movie.

Ben Affleck is convincing as the best friend to a genius, able to effectively play the joker and the friend who would "lay down in traffic for you". Matt Damon's portrayal of that genius realizing that life has something more to offer than batting cages and bars is equally stunning. And Robin Williams certainly leaves nothing to be desired (except maybe a beard trimmer...).

The most amazing thing about this movie is the writing. Even if the acting were not terrific, this movie still would have made my top ten list. I was captivated from beginning to end.

If you've not seen it, Good Will Hunting is without doubt a "renter", and I think after seeing it, it's one you'll want to own to watch again and again.

While everyone took sides with L.A. Confidential (for it's Old Hollywood flair and tight-as-a-girdle plot arc) or Titanic (for it's generally inescapable, juggernaut-like aura) as the Best Picture of 1997, it seems that too many people overlook Good Will Hunting for what it was: a timeless little opus that managed to make South Boston look romantic and happened to make Ben Affleck and Matt Damon some of the most deserving superstars in recent memory.

Because before they were anybody, they were just the writers of this tale of a reluctant human being named Will Hunting, a mathematical genius who wore the guise of a hoodlum, and all of the sudden obstacles he had to take on to truly step in to manhood. Among these obstacles were a straight-forward shrink who outright dared Will to bulls*** him (played by Robin Williams, who got his overdue Oscar for it), a brilliant M.I.T. professor who felt it his own personal redemption to put Will's mind to great use somehow (Stellan Skarsgård, who never fails to steal nearly every scene he's in), and a girl who doesn't understand why the boy she loves so much cannot love her.

It was these obstacles that made Will Hunting such a complex character: while he was a genius at the definite (math), he was a bit of a moron at the indefinite (human relationships). His rough-edged exterior was simply a cry for help, and the process of which the obstacles in his life realized that and attempted *to* help him was nothing short of extraordinarily touching.