Gwyneth Paltrow Movie:

				Salesrank: 194028
		MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
Bounce has all the deft charm and breezy good looks you'd expect from a romance starring Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow, but under the surface beats the poisoned heart of an independent film just going through the motions. Affleck plays Buddy Amaral, a successful ad exec with an empty life. In a Chicago airport, he meets Greg Janello (Tony Goldwyn), a failed playwright going home to his family and a corrupt job as a TV writer. Buddy, angling for a one-night stand with a fellow passenger, gives Greg his ticket, but feels bad when he discovers the plane crashed and the guy died. He feels so bad, in fact, that when he gets out of rehab a year or so later, he decides to give the guy's widow, real estate agent Abby (Paltrow), commission on the sale of a building for his business, a sale she's not qualified to make. They start dating. She quickly forgets her initial impression of him as a creepy stalker. Near the end of the movie, she finds out her first impression was correct and she dumps him. It's the right decision but one that the movie won't allow her to make. Instead her best friend and her kids convince her to stay with the guy. Eeeesh. Affleck is good at playing privileged and shallow, Paltrow does what she can with the prepackaged grief of a widow, Joe Morton has very little to do as Buddy's business partner (but he does it well), and Johnny Galecki shines in a very small part as Buddy's assistant. Good performances in a rather creepy film by the guy who made The Opposite of Sex. --Andy Spletzer

Bounce [Region 2] Reviews:
3 stars sound about right
2009-08-31 - Probably the biggest problem with Bounce is that the first 40 minutes of film are very very boring.

The part where Ben's character meets the people at the airport, and the entire storyline that focused on his business and the meetings... this was downright horrible. Usually such scenes serve as nice, innocent filler which leads to the main point of the story- but in this movies case, this was filler that felt even more pointless than usual.

In fact, the pacing of this movie is quite bad too. Not only does nothing really interesting happen leading up to the airplane accident, but you're constantly wondering if the writers even knew which way they wanted to approach the introduction and build-up to the main plot.

For the first 40 minutes, every mildly interesting scene would lead straight into an unnecessary one. VERY awkwardly paced movie this one is for the first half.

The second half -when Ben's character eventually makes contact with the widow- is when the storyline picks up a LOT more. The nerve of Ben's character though, to actually get into a relationship with the woman after she lost her husband in an airplane accident. Oh you don't think that's bad? Get THIS-

Ben's character switched planes with the same guy at the airport that was married to the widow, so Ben's character was supposed to be on the airplane that went down. Ben's character went to contact the widow to do the right thing and explain what happened because switching plane tickets with the guy that died was something that was seriously bothering him... but instead he falls in love with the guys wife! Insane.

Interesting how the introduction of the widows children didn't even enter the picture until much later. I thought this was a good idea and a nice break from the typical "child hates mom or dads girlfriend/boyfriend" storyline that's so popular in many other dramas that eventually becomes a focal point later on. None of that here.

It WAS quite offensive to me that Ben's character would mock the people who died in airplane accidents. Maybe he wasn't necessarily mocking the people- just the presentation and the memories people would share with those they recently lost, Ben's character would find a way to make fun of it in one scene early on. Surely had this movie been released after 9/11, a scene like this wouldn't have made it into the final version.

I don't know- it's a good movie, but not a great one.

Full of surprises
2008-08-12 - I've read a few reviews of this film that said it was creepy and really not all that good. I disagree completely. I loved it. I thought it was a very good character study of 2 people in recovery from trauma, each from a different type. The performances were very good, the movie was not too long, it made its point and got on with it, and it was believable to me. There was one situation that seemed a bit off, but all in all I highly recommend this movie.

Offensive and Disturbing
2008-06-15 - I had to give it at least one star in order to do a review.

Ben Affleck's character is a horrible person. He only gives up his plane ticket in order to get laid, he stalks and lies to Gwyneth Paltrow's character. He sleeps with her before even telling her that he knew her husband, yet alone mentioning that he gave her husband the ticket on the crashed plane. Then-I think the worst part-he lies to her son saying that the deceased father did not express any desire to be with his son. He denys that the father said he wanted to fly home to spend time with his son selling Christmas trees. The son is obviously hurt and this lie in no way benefits anyone. Affleck's character does it out of pure malice.
SPOILER::: In the end poor Gwyneth ends up with this psycho and we can assume that the poor boys have to deal with this manipulative stalker, pathological lier and selfish #@$^#&%#. Do not see this movie. It is horrible!!!

Would you fly on an outfit named "Infinity Air"?
2008-03-28 - Why not just go ahead and call it "Crash and Burn Air"? That would fit right in with the general quality of the plot and the writing (not to mention the male lead's acting).

Plot and writing. Look, as I've mentioned before in a different context, one coincidence is a great plot device: a young man sees a woman about to throw herself into the ocean and saves her; a cop sees a murder suspect walking down the street; an Army private who later becomes an officer finds out his first sergeant is his old drill instructor. Great. Pile on the coincidences though, and what you have is nothing more than lazy and unfocused writing. Such is the case here. SPOILER ALERT. Affleck's Buddy Amaral not only switches places with Gwyneth Paltrow's loving husband* on a flight that crashes, but he's involved in the airline's business AND there just happens to be a video of Amaral with the loving husband that just happens to appear at a crucial moment.

This movie does not do service to the "from airplane disaster to romance" genre. About the only thing to its credit is the unlikely achievement of making "Random Hearts" look good.

* I'm assuming Greg Janello is a loving husband. If you were married to Gwyneth Paltrow, wouldn't *you* be loving?

warm and sweet
2007-03-04 - This film was a surprise to me. As the blurb on the DVD case said, this was a romantic movie with great chemistry between the two co-stars, I expected to see a cute movie about two beautiful people falling in love. but I was pleasantly suprised by the depth of the movie.

The basic plotline is this: Ben Affleck plays a vibrant, young man with a promising career named Buddy who gives up his plane ticket to a man he meets at the airport for a night with a beautiful blond. As fate would have it, the plane has a deadly crash killing all the passengers on board including Buddy's acquaintance. To make up for the guilt, Buddy seeks out the widow of this acquaintance, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Although, Buddy's intentions were merely to help the family and disappear, in the midst of his guilt, he sees past the grief and falls in love with this beautiful woman.

I believe the script, the directing, and the acting were all very successful in this film. Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck were very believable and the gradual growth in their relationship was very real. Gwyneth's performance was quite amazing. Peronally this is one of my favorite performances by her. She allows Abby to be vulnerable and emotional yet her strength and virtues are consistent throughout the movie. The credit goes to both Gwyneth and the write/director, Don Roos for this. The director seemed to have paid much attention to the details, especially with the two characters in their behavior.
Five stars!