Meet Joe Black

Joe Black ( Brad Pitt ) as the Grim Reaper arrives on the doorstep of wealthy businessman Bill Parrish ( Anthony Hopkins ) after borrowing a body of a man killed that morning. After experiencing chest pains and hearing voices Bill Parish is due to die and Joe has come to escort him to the other side. Bill, playing for more time, engages with Joe and manages to persuade him to spend a little more time on earth. Joe’s interest in humanity and experiencing life is particularly heightened when he and Bill’s daughter Susan start to form a relationship.  “Meet Joe Black” centres more on the relationship of Joe and Susan rather than Deaths design for Bill. As a Romeo and Juliet style story of forbidden love, “Meet Joe Black” tries hard to play on audience emotions. Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins give solid performances but the lengthy run time makes it hard to sustain interest in both the story and any of the characters. The premise is quite good and the Stella cast try to make the most of the concept of the spiritual firepower of love. However it’s over complication and unnecessary sub plot ( bid to take over Bill’s company) just makes “ Meet Joe Black” unnecessarily long.

Billionaire "Parrish" (Sir Anthony Hopkins) is feeling a bit under the weather as his birthday approaches, and a potential corporate merger looms too. His daughter "Sarah" (Claire Forlani) is, meantime, rather keen on one of his hotshot employees "Drew" (Jake Weber) who is a driving force behind the impending and lucrative business deal. "Parrish" is clearly unwell, and after a scare that looks like an heart attack, he finds a new character in his life. The blonde and piercing-eyed Brad Pitt whose purpose here is pretty clear to us, but not yet to his new friend. Hastily named "Joe Black" the older man starts to act as a sort of guide for the younger, who clearly his little knowledge of how the world works. "Black" starts to feature much more prominently in the life of the mogul and that causes consternation as he begins to display a behaviour that really contrasts with that which made him successful in the first place. That causes quite a bit of chagrin for the ambitious "Drew" but not as much as the attentions "Black" is now paying to "Claire" - and that are slowly becoming reciprocated, too. "Parrish" has, by now, begun to realise who his dashing and charismatic companion is - and has concerns about the impact this might have on his daughter should she find out. Can the pair find a way to reconcile what must be done with what they want to be done? It's quite a solid and promising story and there's quite an effective dynamic between the under-stated Pitt and Sir Anthony. It's just far too long, though. It could easily lose an hour and the plot wouldn't suffer. It's almost like a three act play that takes far too long to get going, and is really only redeemed by a delightfully conspiratorial last half hour. It's a good looking film but is too dialogue-heavy and I found myself wading through too much of it to really enjoy it. Sorry.

Death takes a holiday. Not only the name of the play it was based off, but the general premise of the film. A real fish out of water story, with death trying to understand life and why people don't usually want to give it up. I can see this film not ageing well for those on the left who demand changes to older films or scenes cut. With them not understanding that death talks to people in their own voice. So that's why we the audience heard Joe speaking like the Jamaican women who was in the hospital. I can see those people losing their minds over that scene. Demanding at minimum a trigger warning. Anyway the cast did an amazing job and is one of those films where you don't listen to the critics, who gave it a F, listen to the audience who gave it a B.