Mike Flaherty is a simple man, an average Joe living in the New Jersey suburbs with a schulbby body who’s prone to panic attacks, has a struggling law practice and with a wife and two young daughters to support. He coaches high school wrestling on the side, but his team is awful and hasn’t won a match in months. In other words, he seems like an all-around loser.

But when he finds a loophole in the paperwork of an elderly client named Leo whose Alzheimer’s Disease has left him in danger of having his care taken over by the state, Mike hatches a plan to make some extra money. He takes over the guardianship of Leo, a task that garners him an extra $1500 per month, and then sneaks Leo out of his own house and into residence at an assisted-living home. Suddenly, he’s got enough cash flow to survive – and no one seems to notice that he’s cheated a little to do it.

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Sounds like a win-win situation, right? Well, Flaherty’s the lead character in the new comedy “Win Win,” where things are hardly that simple – especially when Leo’s heretofore unknown teenage grandson Kyle shows up from out of state and turns the lives of Mike and his family upside down.

The Flahertys feel compelled to take care of Kyle until they can figure out exactly why he’s fled his mother in Ohio. But when Kyle reveals his amazing talent for wrestling, Mike feels like a winner for the first time in his life and like nothing can go wrong – yet Kyle can’t quite put his mysterious past behind him.

“Win Win” is a character comedy with heart, following in the tradition of films like “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Cyrus” and “Please Give.” Its ample pleasures don’t come from exciting twists and turns – although Kyle’s wrestling matches give the film jolts of energy – but instead lie in the quieter pleasures of a story well told and the fact that it respects the audience’s intelligence with novel-quality depth and feeling.

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Using reader scores, IMDB ranked their top 15 films produced since 2000. Other than “The Departed,” which along with “Mystic River,” “Crash,” “Crash,” and “Crash,” ranks in the top 5 over-rated films of ever, there’s little to quibble over. Taste is a subjective thing.

My personal Top 15 are ranked as my favorites always are — based on nothing more than re-watchability. “Rocky Balboa” might not be better written, photographed or acted than any number of films not on this list, but I’m going to watch it a helluva lot more, that’s for sure.  

1. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) – Ever since the lights came up after that first screening, like a drug this lyrical, gorgeously photographed piece of myth-making has tugged me back for another taste. This isn’t easy to admit, but I think I admire Andrew Dominik’s directorial debut even more than John Ford’s “Young Mister Lincoln” (1939), which it resembles in so many ways. Were this also a listing of the greatest performances of the new millennium, Casey Affleck’s portrayal of Robert Ford would rank #1, as well.

2. The Passion of the Christ (2004) – Easily, the purest and rawest emotional cinematic experience I’ve ever had. The Left’s bigoted, venomous attacks combined with the film’s eventual blockbuster success were almost as satisfying as the re-election of George W. Bush. (more…)