Meet Joe Black

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.