{"id":56451,"date":"2022-12-12T16:38:05","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T21:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=56451"},"modified":"2022-12-12T16:38:11","modified_gmt":"2022-12-12T21:38:11","slug":"devotion-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2022\/12\/devotion-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotion \u2013 Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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                With \u201cAvatar: The Way of Water\u201d opening next weekend, no new wide release wanted to open this weekend and have only one week to make money before they got squashed. I\u2019ve already reviewed first-place domestic box office finisher \u201cBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever,\u201d as well as runners-up \u201cViolent Night,\u201d \u201cStrange World,\u201d and \u201cThe Menu\u201d in second through fourth place, respectively. As much as I\u2019d like to revisit \u201cThe Menu\u201d and heap on more praise, this week\u2019s review will be for fifth-place finisher \u201cDevotion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                The film stars up-and-comers Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell as a pair of heroic Korean War fighter pilots in 1950. Jesse Brown (Majors) is the more gifted flyer of the two, but as an African-American, he\u2019s held back by the prejudices of the day. He\u2019s not completely shut out, and things are starting to turn around, especially considering his incredible skill, but there are still many that look down on him. Tom Hudner (Powell) is also a gifted flyer in Brown\u2019s unit. He\u2019s not as talented as Brown, but he\u2019s seen as more likeable, media-friendly, and promotable. He wishes there was more he could do for his superior colleague, but Brown and his wife Daisy (Christina Jackson) insist that Hudner not fight Brown\u2019s battles for him, just be there for him. Hudner spends the bulk of the movie trying to figure out how to be there for his friend without overstepping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                I\u2019ll come right out and say it \u2013 we\u2019ve already had a fighter pilot movie this year with \u201cTop Gun: Maverick,\u201d a film that may end the year as the #1 box office performer worldwide. That movie even had Glen Powell, who, between this film, that one, and playing John Glenn in \u201cHidden Figures\u201d is getting quite the reputation as Hollywood\u2019s go-to guy to play aviators. The marketing for this movie has tried to push it as a sort of successor to \u201cTop Gun: Maverick,\u201d trying to pull in audiences that made that film a hit. But it\u2019s actually having the opposite effect, making this film look like a cheap knockoff that doesn\u2019t need to be seen by audiences that have already had their fill of fighter pilots in 2022. I assure you it’s no knockoff \u2013 too many talented people are putting their backs into this effort, and Jesse Brown\u2019s story most definitely deserves to be told – but it is a notch below the superior performer creatively, and that is translating into a terrible performance commercially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Probably the biggest problem with the film is the decision to dwell too much on this portion of Brown\u2019s life. Don\u2019t get me wrong, this is obviously an important part, and no biopic would be complete without it, I\u2019m just not sure it was a great idea to limit the film\u2019s timeline to just one year. Yes, the film centers around the friendship between Brown and Hudner, and I know the two didn\u2019t know each other until 1950, but Brown has achieved so much success already at the start of the movie that there are barely any obstacles to overcome. I think a straight-up Brown biopic would have been the way to go rather than focusing on his relationship with the frankly bland Hudner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                \u201cDevotion\u201d is a competent movie with dedicated performances. War movie aficionados will have a pretty good idea of what they\u2019re going to get here: bonding among the officers, family dynamics with Brown, some bullying and heated conversations about race relations, comic relief antics during a shore leave (Brown\u2019s encounter with a celebrity is a highlight of the film), and of course, tense flying sequences. It\u2019s a fine choice if you\u2019re into this kind of movie, but it can be tedious if you\u2019re all fighter pilot-ed out for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDevotion\u201d is rated PG-13 for strong language, some war action\/violence, and smoking. Its running time is 139 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver                 With \u201cAvatar: The Way of Water\u201d opening next weekend, no new wide release wanted to open this weekend and have only one week to make money… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":56452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[1993],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56451"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56453,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56451\/revisions\/56453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}