Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (2009)

 

Genre: Drama

Time: 1h 30mins

Director: Thomas Carter

Quick Summary: Biography of Ben Carson who grew up to be Dr. Ben Carson, a world famous neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins.

I forgot I was watching a film about a doctor for the first half.

For real though, the first half of this film focuses on this guys childhood and man he was a dick. I never seen such an ungrateful, ignorant kid. It was genuinely hard to see how he grew up to be the kind doctor we saw in the beginning determined to do anything to save lives. Honestly though I loved we got to see this, as he goes from having nothing and having to metaphorically fight to get his way through life at the height of equal rights for black people in the 60's-70's, dumb with zero skills to this amazing knowledgeable person. Though, him as a kid feels a little unbelievable since it is so dramatic and we don't get much context unless it's fully related to him. 

I know it doesn't sound that interesting, but it really is. It seems slow at some parts, but all the characters put out wonderful dramatic performances. There were some choices definitely made with some of the editing, as we get some really out of place slow motion and slow dolly zooms to add that extra dramatic flare that I would have expected more from a film in the 90's than 2009. I couldn't help but laugh at these moments because honestly it was so silly to see a super serious conversation with the camera dramatically zooming in on their face. Felt like a sketch at times. Especially one moment where a teacher goes from praising the kid for spelling really well, to full of racism infront of an assembly saying things such as the white kids need to try better if a black kid with no dad does better than them; nobody says anything and they move on.

Sadly though, I don't think they would have been able to fit absolutely everything in as we rush through the guy being labeled as the dumbest kid in the class, to his sudden rise as one of the smartest, then on to Yale, marriage, his internship, and his ultimate successes as a neurosurgeon. Essentially we miss the inbetween bits, I would have loved to see how he met his wife or a bit more of his internship. The issues with the pacing started as soon as this played though as we're chucked in what feels like halfway through a scene and then have to gather all the information as you go. This isn't a mystery film so really it doesn't work. But I did also find that scenes jumped a lot, obviously to cover all the ground they could without it being too long.

I did like this and found it interesting as I had never heard of this guy before and I'm so glad he has got some sort of tribute to him. The guy deserves it.

7/10

"Success is determined not by whether or not you face obstacles, but by your reaction to them."