In the mindset of my last review for the Communique, I wanted to choose a movie that would reflect the anxiousness of this part of the semester when all the final projects, final papers, and dreaded tutorials are due. In one of his last movies, “The Angriest Man in Brooklyn,” Robin Williams had been able to portray to us all how important time really is.

Henry Altman is an incredibly angry man. It seems that in this case, the title does give away the film when you meet Henry. In the first 10 minutes on screen, he narrates to the audience that he is adding things to his list of things he hates. He looks worn from a horrible night’s sleep and tired of waiting in traffic, but more importantly, he’s angry that he is late for his doctor’s appointment. Once he’s finally there, he has to wait even longer for a doctor who isn’t even his normal doctor.

Just when things couldn’t possibly get any worse for Henry Altman, he is told he has 90 minutes to live.

Storming out of the clinic with a too-revealing hospital gown, Henry hails a cab to go back to work. But then the news finally sinks in for him. What was he, a man who has spent the better part of the last two years of his life angry, going to do? That’s when 90 minutes become as precious as gold to Henry Altman, and he realizes there are so many things he needed to fix before the clock strikes 6:22 p.m.

Throughout his day, Henry tries to reconcile with his loved ones and his close friends before he dies. Unfortunately, everyone he meets manages to make him lose his temper. The only one who seems to chase him down on his last day of life is the doctor who told him he had 90 minutes to live. But the movie shows a minute of happiness is worth a lot more than a year of anger.

Henry Altman was rushing against the clock to be able to travel through one of the busiest, loudest cities in the country to tell his loved ones that he loves them. Altman states, “The only people who don’t look back with regret are idiots and psychopaths. And I got a lifetime of regrets, boy.” Only when his time was running out did he stop and realize what he had become. With all the anger he held against the world for what it was, Henry made himself the thing that he hated the most.

Robin Williams reminded the world of laughter and how the world is full of life and goodness. His character, although starting out as mean and hateful towards the world, manages to teach the audience the same lesson that Robin Williams did.  We need to take a moment to remember that time is precious enough to appreciate it. Final projects, papers, and tests make it easy for us to have a sense of lost time; however it’s when we take the moment to breathe that we acknowledge all the hard work we’ve already accomplished.

5/5