Half Nelson Critique

Half Nelson is one of the movies that has been produced with a small budget and which, in the end, become more and more popular along the time. It was released in 2006 and it was a great success. Unlike most successful contemporary movie, Half Nelson was aimed to tell a different story and to a different type of public. The movie is intriguing and it engages its viewers by allowing them to discover so to speak hidden stories of the characters. The viewers need to learn how to identify things that are not explicitly being said from the ways in which the character talks or moves. The movie Half Nelson was all in all an excellent drama and as such it received very encouraging critique. Needless to say, the Half Nelson movie had been the first success of its director, Ryan Fleck and the co-writer and co-producer Anne Boden. At the same time it was the first movie produced by Anne Boden and which gained international recognition.

Half Nelson movie had managed to get in the top ten films of 2006 in many lists and it had a calculated overall average of 85 out of 100 on Metacritic. It also has a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. Half Nelson the movie was critically acclaimed as a very good film. Kevin Smith, a movie critic, gave the film a ‘two big thumbs up’ rating and said that it was probably the best movie he had seen in the last decade. Lisa Schwarzbaum had also awarded it with an ‘A’ while LA Weekly critic Scott Foundas appreciated it truthfulness and the quality of the acting and story at the same time. Kenneth Turan, a LA Times critic, has argued that Half Nelson is a masterpiece execution-wise and that its subtlety in writing, directing and acting that is present in this movie is hard to see nowadays in the film industry.