I used to like Jeff Bridges as an actor. He had this aw shucks manner, self-effacing, gullible, not a devious bone in his body. I think his peak performance was in John Carpenter's Starman, especially his Alien's Interpretation of the Stones' "I Can't Get No Satisfaction". Perfect. A meme of its time. But then poor ole Jeff couldn't seem to shed his Starman persona. His speech mannerisms seemed to adapt themselves to some outer space diction. Then in 1993 along came Fearless & the creased brow, sad downturning eyes & the by this time highly refined aw-Shucks mannerisms get blown up as big as the moon, all for the sake of a sappy pointless sentimentalist flick about a plane crash & those who make it out. Caters to the basest superstitious mindsets. Shame, Jeff, shame.

Max Klein (Jeff Bridges) survives a plane crash and emerges a changed man. He reunites a baby with the mother and walks away from the crash. He drives off to drop in on long lost friend. He feels invincible and eats strawberries while being deadly allergic. When the FBI finds him, he insists on flying back to San Francisco. Everybody is overjoyed. However he is distant from his wife Laura (Isabella Rossellini) and son Jonah. His business partner Jeff Gordon (John de Lancie) was killed in the crash. Lawyer Brillstein (Tom Hulce) wants him to exaggerate for Jeff's wife Nan (Deirdre O'Connell)'s settlement. Airline therapist Dr. Bill Perlman (John Turturro) is working with the survivors. Max becomes a media hero. Unable to cope, Perlman connects him to grief stricken survivor Carla Rodrigo (Rosie Perez) and her callous husband Manny (Benicio Del Toro) after the death of her baby in the crash.I like the idea and I find the first act rather fascinating. Walking away from the crash is such a great opening. However I got a bit tired of Jeff Bridges' zen master performance and I found his character rather annoying. I want to find some insight or some revelation. Instead, he's a bit of a douchey socialpath. He needs a few more explosive moments. It's great that he has a panic attack after Nan puts him in his place. I also find the compensation discussion interesting. It could have added more of that into the movie. Rosie Perez plays a depressed angry character. It gets a bit depressing to watch her. It is hard to get my hands around these characters. It's as if the movie wants the audience to join Max but I can't completely get into it.

I watched it till the end. If you the sort of person who spends a lot of time on thoughts like purpose, death and life DO NOT watch this movie. it's worse than an empty shell. it is false advertising, this movie. It tells about a man's journey after a plane crash that had changed him to someone who does not feel. He feels almost content with anything and joyous with life. there are some illogical plot occurring. It has to do with an allergy. Besides that the main character had little appeal to me. even the gorgeous women did not make up for what a fluke the movie was. I am flabbergasted that certain people felt so full of emotion after this movie but I think those are the shallow sort of people.

After a terrible air disaster, survivor Max Klein emerges a changed person.Unable to connect to his former life or to wife, he feels godlike and immortal.When psychologist Bill Perlman is unable to help, he has Max meet another survivor, Carla Rodrigo, who is racked with grief and guilt since her baby died in the crash....This is one of those movies that had massive plaudits when first released, but vanished without a trace, (you can't even get it on DVD here in the UK).And I ask myself why? It's one of the best films no ones heard of in the nineties, and it may even have a career best performance from Bridges and the rest of the cast.It's a difficult subject matter to deal with, people trying to come to terms with loss, whereas one man, is doing everything in his power to prove everyone that something enigmatic, even sublime, happened to him on the plane.The film would be perfect if it had the same power in the third act, like it did in the first two, but sadly, it runs a little out of steam.The scenes on the plane are very intense and genuinely terrifying, but somewhat peaceful thanks to Bridges calming influence.The film is asking lots of questions throughout, but if you go that little much deeper, rather than look at it at face value, it gets a little lost also (there are some scenes, that are indicating that Bridges is really dead, and in purgatory, which can be confusing at times).But all in all, if you ever come across this movie, you must take some time out to see i, it's an amazing movie with an amazing message, it just loses it's way a little in the last 30 mins.