Bernie (2012)

So much average

Good concept, poorly executed.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

In small-town Texas, an affable mortician strikes up a friendship with a wealthy widow, though when she starts to become controlling, he goes to great lengths to separate himself from her grasp. Bernie delivers a comedic but also dramatic crime biography of how a man reaches his breaking point when he finds himself in a toxic friendship or relationship in general. Jack Black is brilliant as Bernie, Shirley Maclain was also very good and the same goes for Matthew McConaughey and to be honest if you love Richard Linklater as a director this film will definitely suprise you and make you actually kind of understand the character's motivations as a whole and it's a definitely great film..

Linklater has pulled off something remarkable here: he's turned a real-life tragedy into a laugh-out-loud film. A black-comedy Robin Hood, we follow the unbelievable story of a man in a small Texas town who gets mixed up with a mean recluse of an old woman...& things go awry. Black is beyond killer in this movie, bringing a hidden & deep darkness to what could be a cartoonish character. The deep delusion infesting the small town even seeps through the screen onto the audience.

A quirky film? Yes. Yet a film that shows you that even the best of us can be caught up in a situation that leads us to go astray. Bernie is such a film; although, the justification for murder as a solution is in direct violation of societal mores.An extremely affable character, Bernie actually is beloved in his small Texas town of Carthage. He is helpful, resourceful, kind and gives so much of himself.Of course, that all changes when he meets Marjorie Nugent at the time he buries her husband. Just the opposite of Bernie, she falls for his kindness, but her overpowering domineering of their relationship becomes too much for our guy to handle and he succumbs to the murder idea of getting her out of his life.Jack Black is wonderful as he conveys Bernie to a tee. The domineering woman, played by Shirley MacLaine, is also picture perfect. Matthew McConaughey's portrayal of the District Attorney is almost a voice of reason to a town who has become entirely sympathetic to what has occurred.

Director Richard Linklater is known for his small movies and the quirky characters within them, as well as the realistic portraits he captures. In Bernie, Mr. Linklater captures the essence of a small Texas town and the true crime story of the bigger-than-life character loved by all.Mr. Linklater perfectly casts Jack Black (with whom he had done School of Rock) as the community's favorite citizen Bernie, Shirley MacLaine as the rich, bitter widow with whom Bernie becomes entwined, and Michael McConaughy (another Linklater alum, on the cusp of his career makeover) as the district attorney who must prosecute Bernie despite public opinion that Bernie should go free. All three stars give wonderful performances – most of all Mr. Black who restrains himself from his usual attention-grabbing antics and gives a well-controlled performance, including several songs that were quite unexpected.This beautiful character study has its moments of comedy, but it is the finely detailed performances that make it something special.