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srp8621
Reviews
They Call Me Sirr (2001)
Summary: Bad dialogue, poor storytelling. Does a dis-service to the man.
I attended Texas A&M (where Sirr Parker played) from 1996 - 2001. I had the occasion to briefly chat with Sirr Parker and I believed then (as now) that he is one of the nicest, most sincere guys I've ever met. It was then with great interest that I rented this movie. As soon as I read it was about him, I snapped it up. Given that, I tried to like this movie. I really did. It just didn't happen.
For one, the chronology is at times hard to keep up with. This is especially true with when Sirr is in highschool. One minute, he's on the junior varsity team. The next minute, he's suddenly varsity. The next thing you know, he's starting. Verbal clues here indicate that THREE YEARS have passed (Sirr is now a junior). This is only compounded by the fact that Sirr's little brother NEVER GROWS UP! It's hard to tell when time is passing because the kid doesn't get bigger and doesn't age at all over four years. One big advantage of movies over the stage is the ability to manipulate time. Unfortunately, this ability is squandered here.
The dialogue is bad. Very un-natural. I don't fault the actors however. They only worked with what they had. If you give them "forced" drama to work with, you will get forced lines in return. Good dialogue will also create the plot (exposition). In this case, the dialogue did not sufficently express what the characters should have been feeling at that moment.
Finally, I'd never thought I'd say this but there needs to be some conflict and tension in the plot. Not an Armageddon-esque amount, but enough to help move things along. Yes, it sucks that Sirr has to watch over his brother WHILE working WHILE playing football. Yes, there is the alchie mom who comes and goes. There are plenty of conflicts, but each one seems to come up on a whim, and be dismissed just as easily.
It would appear that the screenwriter tried his best to give the viewer a broad vision of what Sirr went through. It's almost as if he felt pressure to jam it all into a two hour Showtime special. And in movies, as with techtonic plates, all that pressure means something has to give.