Not bad, but two almost fatal flaws...

Finally saw this today and overall I liked it, but it had two big flaws. The first flaw was when it went political it got preachy and sappy. It's okay for movies to be political, but it has to be organic; it has to feel like part of the story. Every time this movie went political it felt like a "message" was being insterted into the story. As I sat in the theater I could picture the writers sitting around a table saying, "Hey, let's add this scene where they go to a political rally. It has nothing to do with anything that's happened before, we have no idea who this politician is, none of the characters talk about a political rally. It's just dropped into this movie out of nowhere. That's what I mean when I say the political parts did not feel like they were part of the same movie. (Not sure if those parts were in the original stage production.) Those preachy political moments (there were maybe four or five of them) really pulled me out of the movie because they seemed so contrived.

The second big flaw was pacing. There came a time when the character who owned the nail salon (forget her name) went into the back alley and sang a big song that got everybody up and moving, and then the power came back on (would have been more effective to do it at night). At that point it felt like the movie was winding down and that I'd be walking out of the movie theater in about 5 or 10 minutes. Then the movie continued on for another 25 minutes or so. Big mistake. They should have edited that last part of the movie down by at least ten minutes. As it is, the ending of the movie dragged and it lost all of its story momentum.

Overall I did enjoy it, but it could have been much better. I wouldn't be surprised if Jimmy Smits gets an Oscar nomination. He was REALLY good.