The Blind Side

Despairingly ignorant, The Blind Side never gets off its bourgeois perch. Based on the teen life of Baltimore Ravens lineman Michael Tuohy (Quinton Aaron), the colossal black youth is rescued from poverty when concerned white mom Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) allows him to live with her family. The Blind Side’s take on race relations isn’t as sensationalistic as Bullock’s Crash, but is every bit as patronizing: Its m.o. isn’t understanding, empathy or identification, just white self-congratulation.

Gravitating toward smaller kids in the schoolyard and getting in mischievous adventures with Tuohy son S.J. (Jae Head), Oher is alternately treated as a gentle Frankenstein monster and a family dog. He’s allowed no moments of his own. Skin-deep, endless and terrified of real human connection, The Blind Side is a fraudulent issue-movie for the socially empowered. –Mark Palermo