''Reach Me'' is a 2014 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed and written by John Herzfeld. The film stars

Sylvester Stallone Sylvester Gardenzio "Sly" Stallone (; born July 6, 1946) is an American actor and filmmaker. In a Sylvester Stallone filmography, film career spanning more than fifty years, Stallone has received List of awards and nominations received by Syl ...

, Kyra Sedgwick,

Terry Crews Terry Alan Crews (born July 30, 1968) is an American actor, television host, and former professional American football, football player. He played Julius Rock in the UPN/The CW Television Network, CW sitcom ''Everybody Hates Chris'', which air ...

Thomas Jane Thomas Jane (born Thomas Elliott III; February 22, 1969) is an American actor. Born and raised in Maryland, Jane's film career started with the Telugu-language romantic comedy '' Padamati Sandhya Ragam'' (1987). His other early films included ...

, Kevin Connolly, Lauren Cohan,

Kelsey Grammer Allen Kelsey Grammer (born February 21, 1955) is an American actor and producer. He gained fame for his role as the psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the NBC sitcom ''Cheers'' (1984–1993) and its spin-off ''Frasier'' (1993–2004, and again F ...

, and

Tom Berenger Tom Berenger (born Thomas Michael Moore; May 31, 1949) is an American actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the Staff Sergeant Bob Barnes in ''Platoon'' (1986). He is also known for playing ...

. The film was produced by Rebekah Chaney, Cassian Elwes, Buddy Patrick, John Herzfeld. The plot revolves around how a self-help book inspires a diverse group of people: a journalist and his editor, a former inmate, a hip-hop mogul, an actor and an undercover cop. The creation of ''Reach Me'' was influenced as least partly by Herzfeld's memories of seeing televangelist

Reverend Ike Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II (June 1, 1935 – July 28, 2009), better known as Reverend Ike, was an American minister and evangelist based in New York City. He was known for the slogan "You can't lose with the stuff I use!" Though his preach ...

and reading

Napoleon Hill Oliver Napoleon Hill (October 26, 1883 – November 8, 1970) was an American self-help author. He is best known for his book ''Think and Grow Rich'' (1937), which is among the best-selling self-help books of all time. Hill's works insisted tha ...

's self-help book '' Think and Grow Rich'', although Herzfeld says the film is "not about getting rich, but believing in yourself."

Cast

as Gerald * Kyra Sedgwick as Collette *

as Wolfie * Lauren Cohan as Kate *

as Angelo AldoBrandini * Kevin Connolly as Roger King *

as Teddy *

Nelly Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. (born November 2, 1974), better known by his stage name Nelly, is an American rapper, singer, and actor. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and embarked on his musical career in 1993 as a member of the Midwest hip hop g ...

as E-Ruption * Omari Hardwick as Dominic *

as Wilson *

Danny Trejo Danny Trejo (, ; born May 16, 1944) is an American actor. Known for his Danny Trejo filmography, large body of work as a character actor, films in which he has appeared in have grossed over $3.7 billion worldwide. A native of Los Angeles, Tr ...

as Vic *

Danny Aiello Daniel Louis Aiello Jr. () (June 20, 1933 – December 12, 2019) was an American actor. He appeared in numerous motion pictures, including ''The Godfather Part II'' (1974), ''The Front'' (1976), ''Once Upon a Time in America'' (1984), ''Hide in ...

as Father Paul * Ryan Kwanten as Jack Burns * David O'Hara as Thumper *

Elizabeth Henstridge Elizabeth Frances Henstridge (born 11 September 1987) is an English actress, model and director. She starred as Jemma Simmons in the ABC superhero action drama series '' Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'' (2013–2020), set within the Marvel Cinematic ...

as Eve * Rebekah Chaney as Denise-Denise * Chuck Zito as Joe * Tom Sizemore as Frank *

Cary Elwes Ivan Simon Cary Elwes (; born 26 October 1962) is an English actor. He starred as Westley in ''The Princess Bride (film), The Princess Bride'' (1987), and also had lead roles in films such as ''Robin Hood: Men in Tights'' (1993) and the Saw (fr ...

as Kersey

Production

To build a solid cast for the movie, Herzfeld started with Stallone; the two had been friends since they were roommates together as students at

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private university, private research university in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. , the university enrolled 19,852 students in two colleges and ten schools across over ...

. After Stallone committed to participate, other actors agreed to join the cast at minimum pay rates. Herzfeld recruited another long-time friend,

, to play the role of a mobster – but after Aiello declined that role, Herzfeld and Aiello collaborated on creating the character of Father Paul. Aiello credits his work on ''Reach Me'' with aiding his emotional recovery from the death of his son, Danny Aiello III. While inviting friends' participation in ''Reach Me'', Herzfeld also enlisted close relatives of participants: Herzfeld's wife, Rebekah Chaney, joined as co-producer and cast member. Stallone's youngest daughter, Scarlet, had her acting debut in ''Reach Me'', although she described the experience as "pretty humiliating" because she "just had to say one tiny line, and they had to cut that in half." During principal photography in 2013, funding for the film dried up when one of the investors, Norman Zada, backed out and sued for return of . Herzfeld, Stallone and producers Rebekah Chaney and Cassian Elwes started a

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

campaign to raise their goal of by September 19. Despite reaching the goal on Kickstarter, the production team decided to withdraw its Kickstarter campaign and start again with the competing crowdfunding platform

Indiegogo Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California. The site is one of the first sites to offer crowd funding. Indiegogo allows peo ...

, citing its broader and more flexible capabilities. The Indiegogo campaign set a goal for starting on September 17 and ended on September 22 with a total of . Total production costs for the film are estimated at .

Marketing

The first official trailer for John Herzfeld's ''Reach Me'' was released on July 7, 2014, and the second official trailer was released on September 25, 2014.

Reception

The film holds a 4% approval rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 3.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Featuring a bewildering array of talented actors pummeled by disjointed direction and a dull, hackneyed script, ''Reach Me'' is so fundamentally misbegotten that its title reads more like a threat." At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 21% based on 14 reviews.

References

External links