Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2015 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-01-22
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 121 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Robin Williams won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck nabbed one for Best Original Screenplay, but the feel-good hit Good Will Hunting triumphs because of its gifted director, Gus Van Sant. The unconventional director (My Own Private Idaho, Drugstore Cowboy) saves a script marred by vanity and clunky character development by yanking soulful, touching performances out of his entire cast (amazingly, even one by Williams that's relatively schtick-free). Van Sant pulls off the equivalent of what George Cukor accomplished for women's melodrama in the 1930s and 40s: He's crafted an intelligent, unabashedly emotional male weepie about men trying to find inner-wisdom.

Matt Damon stars as Will Hunting, a closet maths genius who ignores his gift in favour of nightly boozing and fighting with South Boston buddies (co-writer Ben Affleck among them). While working as a university janitor, he solves an impossible calculus problem scribbled on a hallway blackboard and reluctantly becomes the prodigy of an arrogant MIT professor (Stellan Skarsgård). Damon only avoids prison by agreeing to see psychiatrists, all of whom he mocks or psychologically destroys until he meets his match in the professor's former childhood friend, played by Williams. Both doctor and patient are haunted by the past and, as mutual respect develops, the healing process begins. The film's beauty lies not with grand climaxes, but with small, quiet moments. Scenes such as Affleck's clumsy pep talk to Damon while they drink beer after work, or any number of therapy session between Williams and Damon offer poignant looks at the awkward ways men show affection and feeling for one another. --Dave McCoy

Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
DVD 9
English
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Dolby Digital 5.1
English

Synopsis
A South Boston whiz kid elects to clean the halls of learning rather than enter them, slumming his way through life as a janitor at MIT. But his natural ability to unravel complex equations attracts the attention of a professor who won't let him quit, a beautiful Harvard student who wants to save him, a sympathetic buddy who wants him to escape South Boston, and a counselor who encourages him. A soundly acclaimed, homegrown effort from lifelong Boston buddies Damon and Affleck, who pushed their script through development by disguising it as a suspense thriller.

Customer Reviews

Superb film
Before they were quite so famous, two of the main cast of this superb film gave the performances that would kick their acting careers into the million dollar market.
The film itself will forever be a classic. Its simple and easy to relate to plot has you laughing, crying and remembering your own youth.
The main plot and character are a work of genius and really has your total attention through the whole film. It expands your mind to the further possibles of life and also those missed oppotunities.
So the story is amazing, the acting is fantastically believable and the film is crammed full of modern day superstars. What are you waiting for?!?

-Ty

An enlighting film
The film depicts an extraordinary clever boy's life. He works in manual jobs but has interest in science especially mathematics. He reads a lot in public libraries and reaches a level comparable to university graduates in every subject including history, economics etc. His genius is clearly revelaed when he proves various theorems that bewilders university professors. During the film he faces though challenges concerning his future social and personal life. Will he be the scientist that everybody wants him to be or will he seek happiness through ordinary life among his friends?

Good Will Hunting
Matt Damon and Robin Williams star in this remarkable (unique?) film about Will Hunting, a young man who is both vulnerable, unsuccessful, unrecognised and emotionally troubled, despite being intellectually brilliant; Williams plays the therapist who Will slowly opens up to as the story unfolds. Both Damon and Williams play their respective roles with a depth of emotion and absolutely convincing, touching brilliance that I don't believe would be inappropriate to call the best acting I've ever witnessed in a film.

The film affected me rather deeply emotionally, perhaps to a further extent than it would affect most viewers; I found I could relate to Damon's character to such a degree that watching the film (in the presence of others) became an uncomfortable experience. But I can recall it fondly because at its heart the film doesn't forget to simply be entertaining, despite its depth and power, and the thoughts (and actions?) it will no doubt inspire in a sensitive viewer. With that said (and its emotional content and the effect it has had on me personally has certainly made this review a curiously personal one, which I hope Amazon customers will forgive), it may be that I'm by no means among a minority in being so affected by the film; perhaps that is its true magic, lying undiscovered, just like Will's brilliance, beneath the magnificent acting and writing of its surface.

Good Will Hunting is quite possibly a perfect film of its type, but is more likely the perfect film of its type. I can't recommend it more highly.