Good movie but grossly overrated

Expected more

Absolutely the worst movie.

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Originally posed Aug. 1999Great music, great cast, great acting but the story could use some work. Like a lot of people, I thought the black family was seriously overlooked. If the movie was really about two families, why weren't the Taylors given equal screen time with the Herlihys? The tagline should have read: How the '60s affected one family and their acquaintances, since the Taylors did have a brief encounter with middle Herlihy son Michael (Josh Hamilton). While the story touches on issues that concerned blacks, such as the right to vote, police brutality, segregation and the Black Panther Party, the Rev. Taylor (Charles Dutton, in a fine performance) and his son Emmett (Leonard Roberts) are still given very small screen time in comparison with the white characters. After Dutton's character is killed during the Watts riot, Roberts shoulders the black side of this portrait practically on his own (except for David Allan Grier, in an even tinier role), and does so with incredible skill and stealth. Kimberly Scott, who portray's Roberts' mother and Dutton's wife, gives a lovely performance, but it's all too brief. Short shrifts aside, I was very pleased with most of the Herlihy's part of the story, though I thought most of the clichéd, boring story concerning the sister who got pregnant and ran away could have been done away with, and that time given to the Taylors. I was impressed with Jerry O'Connell's performance as the oldest Herlihy son, Brian, who goes to the Vietnam war as an innocent trying to make dad proud of him, and who comes home stripped of that innocence. The movie also focuses on middle son Michael's involvement with the anti-war movement, and his relationships with two activists he meets at a New York student teach in, passionate Sarah Weinstock (Jordana Brewster) and vehement Kenny Klein (Jeremy Sisto). Although the love-triangle part could have been excluded, the three characters bring to life the wonder-bread freedom fighters that existed and actually suffered, and the distrust of (anyone over 30) that generation possessed quite effectively. The Herlihys also get a taste of Woodstock, and if the rest of the movie fails to impress, the Woodstock scenes will at least give you a taste of what it was like to be there. I wasn't too happy with the ending. They should have included notes on what happened to these people after the decade ended. But aside from my disappointment about the ending and the black family's screen time, it was an above average miniseries, which I will give a B+.

I remember when this movie first came on back in 1999 and I was 16 and all excited because I had heard so many stories about the 60's from my parents, who are both Puerto Rican and came of age in 1960's New York. And my mother's reaction to this movie was why they had such an issue showing any Latinos in it at all? And that's a valid question, we were in the 60's, we were getting drafted and getting our heads blown off in Vietnam just like all the other American soldiers. Yet this movie won't take even a minute to acknowledge our existence beyond a few shots of Fidel Castro? Yeah its not like we were doing anything special in the 60's, Cesar Chavez was only leading a nation wide boycott against grapes and fighting for the rights of migrant workers. There were also the 1968 school walkouts, the formation of such groups as The Brown Berets and The Young Lords. Now I know they had a lot to cover, but really they couldn't take some time to at least mention Cesar Chavez, Jeremy Sisto and Josh Hamilton characters were suppose to be such activities, neither could mention they were joining the "nation wide" boycott against California grapes? Movies like Steal This Movie, RFK and even Panthers manage to all acknowledge the existence of Latinos and Panthers even had shots of The Brown Berets along with Hippies and College Students at a Free Huey rally. A movie about The Black Power Movement manages to show Latinos, yet a movie called The 60's treated us like we didn't exist, what's wrong with that picture? And even better was that Panthers came out a good four years before the 60's did.Thankfully the movie Walkout came out in 2006 and was the first movie to finally focus on the Hispanic experience of the 60's with the East LA public school walkouts. And then someone actually complained that Walkout didn't have any White people walking out of the schools or backing up the Mexican kids. Yeah there are no Latinos and barely any Asian beyond the deliver guy in this movie, so why should we have them in ours? Now personally I would love for their to be a real 60's movie that actually remembers that the whole country wasn't just White and Black. And that actually remembers that the biggest achievement of the decade was the joining of the all the groups in a time of war and racial tension. This movie was not it, not even close to it, it is a good nostalgia trip? I guess, but I like Steal This Movie way way better. When you make a 60's movie that can appeal to everyone experiences and then show how everyone truly came together despite all the resistance, brutality and war, then you've made a movie worthy to be called The 60's.P.S. But on the small plus side, the acting in this movie was really good, I thought the whole cast did great.

This was a great, but not very in-depth, overlook of the sixties with examples in the hippie movement, Vietnam veterans, African-American freedom fighters, the intellectual radical left and traditionalists. Most of the actors gave solid performances, especially Jeremy Sisto. Very nice full-circle story. My only beef with the film was that, as usual in Hollywood films, the end trivializes the rest of the content.

I enjoyed the plot, The cast did a great job. If you ever seen Woodstock. This is in your ball park. The soundtrack is just as good as the movie. Julia Stiles proves that she is a great actress, Jerry O'Connell once again has proven his talent as an actor. This is one not to miss. If you did you wish you hadn't.