What Makes a Good Movie?

What do I look for in a good movie? I think it depends entirely on the director. What makes a movie great is quite subjective but a good movie does have certain characteristics. Every element of a good movie like the screenplay, the narrative structure, the chronology and those subtle things that are well crafted. A good movie gives me the sense of satisfaction, happiness and takes me to a different place.

In my opinion, characters are one of the most important parts of any movie. The role in which they partake is what makes the movie interested, and if I’m going to devote two hours of my time to a movie it better be worth the time and effort. When I watch a movie I need to like the characters I’m seeing. I believe that the character and role that an actor betray is what brings the movie alive, and the more realistic the character seems, the better the story.

I've seen countless movies with openings that have you thinking that the rest of the movie is going to be worth watching. In some cases, b.y the time you get to the middle or the end of some movies they are ruined because the director exhausted a scene by putting too much effort into making sense of the story. The movie itself was probably great for the most part, but by the time I get to the end of the movie ending didn’t make any sense or the outcome was not what I expected.

A great example of this is the ending to “Gran Torino”, it ended on such a downer. Clint Eastwood's Character ‘Walt Kowalski’ alienated from his sons, He faces the changes of life and endures a strange relationship with a foreign family and their foreign ways. He realizes that they are a fatherless, multigenerational family with a teenage son who struggles to steer clear of the local gangbangers pressuring him to join them.

Throughout the movie, Walt becomes attached to the family and young teen son and does the things he missed doing with his own son. He starts to adapt to the ways of the new generation and a family that unnoticeably helps him find peace within himself, but as the movie progresses, you think it will end on a note of happily ever after but, Clint Eastwood's character is killed, he sacrificed his own life for the likes of the family he became attached too. There were some unanswered questions! But the ending worked because it matched the rest of the film.

The ending of Gran Torino didn't drag out for very long, unlike some movies. Most movies with endings that drag out causes me to fatigue and/or lose the message in which it tries to deliver and the message is the whole point of making the movie!

My standards of a great movie depends on the genre or the type of message I look for as a movie viewer. This is mostly on the basis that the term itself is subjective and that my idea of greatness often clashes with the opinion of another viewer. Two people may find one movie to be great but often come to their own conclusions as to why they deem it so.

In my opinion, Gran Torino was a great movie! I believe Clint Eastwood’s character ‘Walt Kowalski’, demonstrated how people conform to the changes in society through Intercultural communication. I also believe this movie expressed the meaning of Social Exchange Theory, in this case, Clint Eastwood's character “Walt Kowalski”, sacrificed his life so that a whole family could survive.  

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