Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Mek Torres The Good Lie centers a group of survivors from a civil war in Sudan when they were kids, which they are now called the "Lost Boys of Sudan". When they grew up, they're given a chance to migrate to the United States and take better careers, but having the hard time adapting to a new environment. At this aspect, The Good Lie is a great film; it compellingly portraying their nearly impossible escape for safety and finding a new hope after a number of tragedies. But there's also a side story of an American woman who apparently has gotten an arc for herself as well that feels contrived in comparison. And it gets a little underwhelming along the way. Though it didn't kept the whole film from being at least engaging anyway.The movie doesn't directly establishes its characters that instantly. It all focuses on the journey and there we see their harsh experiences, but at the same time learning brief information of who their they are and what their culture is. It's a quite minimal narrative at this act, it only shows the essential parts of their struggle and whatever keeps them moving on. When they finally grew up, things get even more interesting. Not only trying to cope of what they've been through from the past, but also finding a way to live a new life. And so, they are chosen to move to the United States, but troubles understanding the new culture. It may seem like it's played for laughs at first, but it eventually felt natural and seems interesting as they grew into this new environment.Then the story shifts to another main character, which is an American woman who will guide for their new jobs. Giving her a major characterization isn't actually a bad idea, but her story isn't equally affecting, or even more disappointing, somehow forced in comparison. She is introduced as a person who is often cynical and too burdened by this situation, but then she suddenly found care for them which hardly felt like it earned it for the movie. There's hardly a compelling build up, it's just a mushy deus ex machina to make it seem more pleasant. It does succeed making it look that way, but it's an otherwise less impacting conclusion for the story until we once again focus on the real main characters. The direction is quite simple at delivering its moments; it takes appropriate tones even at its most sentimentality. The actors made their characters feel genuine and brings likability when they can.The Good Lie lets the viewers understand the circumstances of its subjects and then we get to settle with the friendlier but less profound sideline to finish the story. And also to mention, the meaning of the film's title happens to be a shoehorned plot device in the end, and it's not as subtle as it should sound. But the movie still manages to be gripping at the aspect of the Lost Boys of Sudan along the way, because definitely that is the entire point of the story. It's just fascinating to explore their life story; despite of some contrivance eventually involved. But overall, it's all worth seeing.

3xHCCH In the 1980s there was a major civil war in the Sudan causing several children to lose their families. Left on their own devices, these kids had to travel hundreds of miles in order to reach safe haven beyond the border. This film follows the story of one such set of displaced and orphaned children, dubbed by aid workers and media as "The Lost Boys of Sudan". After their eldest brother Theo sacrificed himself to be captured by soldiers, Mamere and his sister Abital were able to reach the refugee camp in Kenya on their own, together with another set of brothers they met along the way, Jeremiah and Paul. Several years later, all four of them, now young adults, were luckily picked to be among those to be relocated to the United States. In Kansas City, Missouri, the boys met employment counselor Carrie Davis, who helped them settle in their new home and find jobs. There, they discovered not only new comforts of life and new opportunities, but also new challenges they had to face. While Mamere worked hard to go to medical school, he constantly worried about his sister Abital who was separated from him at the airport and sent to live in Boston with a foster family. Deeper down, he also continued to be haunted by the sacrifice his brother Theo did for them to live.Reese Witherspoon gets top billing, but she is not the main character of the film at all. Her Carrie goes out of her way to help the Sudanese boys get settled into their new lives. She helps them solve various problems by pulling some bureaucratic strings. But it is still the boys themselves, particularly Mamere, who make the big decisions in their lives. Despite her star status, Witherspoon never drew attention to herself in this role. She gracefully gives her African co-stars the spotlight they deserved.Arnold Oceng plays the lead character Mamere with dignified restraint. It is his performance upon which the whole movie revolved around. He was able to gain our sympathy towards his plight and the various demons he had to face. The actors who played Abital (a radiant Kuoth Wiel), Jeremiah (Ger Duany) and Paul (Emmanuel Jal) all suffered through the Sudanese Civil War in real life, thus accounting for the affecting authenticity in their performances. The young actors who played these characters as child refugees were similarly very effective in their portrayals. Honestly I was not too excited to see this film thinking it would be another one of those "White Savior" films like "The Blind Side" or "Dangerous Minds", where a white man saves a poor person of color out of his miserable condition. At the end though, my fears were unfounded. This turned out to be quite engaging despite its very serious topic. Aside from some awkward moment of humor in the middle as the brothers were adjusting to American life which felt forced, the rest of the film with its theme of brotherly devotion was heartwarming and inspirational. While its overwhelming positivity is wonderful, it may also be seen by some as its main drawback. 7/10.

srsandsberry A lot of stories based on real-life stories don't feel like real life. They feel like a story reborn within a storyteller's imagination to make it somehow more appealing, a better package. Not "The Good Lie." It feels real. And it engenders real emotion. If you can watch this movie and not laugh and feel warm at the heartwarming parts — as we do in real life — and cry at the heartbreaking moments, then you're not watching. You're texting or having a conversation, or thinking about what you're going to do this weekend. If you give yourself over to this film, it will absolutely pull you inside, wrap itself around you and touch your heart. You will laugh. And yes, you will cry. This story puts a very human face on a very human tragedy, that otherwise we might too often look at simply as a headline on an inside page of the newspaper that we pass over to get to something that isn't so hard to fathom.I applaud the people who made this film and thank them. Any filmmaker on the planet would be proud to have been associated with this. I know I would be, and all I am is a guy who stumbled upon it on HBO. What a find.

TxMike Some years ago I saw a documentary on the subject, but this movie is a fictional story inspired by the real events. In fact its content was run by real survivors of the Sudan wars of the 1980s to make sure everything was realistic.The title is from "Huck Finn" and we encounter it three times, it means a lie which is appropriate for the good of someone else, maybe even to save their life.The story starts in the 1980s and we see how whole villages were wiped out by gunfire and burning. In this tale three brothers and their sister in South Sudan manage to run away and survive, then head East towards Ethiopia where they had been told they could get refuge and food. The only transportation for most Sudanese was walking so they thought nothing of making such a trip of several hundred miles, and with little food or fresh water.They eventually meet up with many others headed south to Kenya so they joined them. Their fate was a refugee camp where they could get food, medical care, and safety, but many of them stayed there for years, some never leaving this refugee camp.This movie concerns the three brothers and their sister who received the opportunity to travel to the USA where they would find work and integrate themselves into society. But there was a problem, they had to separate the boys, headed for Kansas City, from their sister headed for Boston, because of the availability of foster homes.So that is the main story here, their relocation to a land of strange customs. They are assigned to Reese Witherspoon as Carrie who would help them find jobs. As she realized how far they had to go in this new environment she became much more involved and eventually to try to reunite the boys with their sister.This is a very good movie and brings home the big issue of internal strife and displacement, not only in South Sudan but in many countries all over the world. Aside from Reese, many of the actors were either men who had actually been young boys in South Sudan or men whose parents were.