cricketbat Music Within couldn't hold my attention. It features powerful performances by both Michael Sheen and Ron Livingston, but the inspiring true story loses its power as the film wanders around and drags on. It's a shame because this movie had the potential to be great.

Roland E. Zwick "Music Within" tells the true story of Richard Pimentel, a Vietnam vet who lost almost all of his hearing on the battlefield and who spent the rest of his life advocating for the rights of the disabled. In fact, Pimentel was instrumental in getting the Americans With Disabilities Act passed into law.Hampered by pedestrian direction by Steven Sawalich and a superficial script, the film, nevertheless, boasts enough humorously sardonic moments to keep it from taking itself too seriously. The relationship between Richard and his longtime girlfriend Christine (played by Melissa George, who's a dead ringer for a young Sandy Dennis) is dealt with in trite and overly familiar terms, and the filmmaking itself never rises much above the level of disease-of-the-week, TV-movie competence.Still, the performances are good - especially by Michael Sheen as Richard's best buddy, Art Honeyman, a genius with Cerebral Palsy - and the material itself so moving and inspiring that one can easily overlook the movie's numerous stylistic weaknesses. And, besides, you get to see the late great Leslie Nielson in one of his last - and briefest - appearances as a forward-thinking doctor who changes Richard's life forever.

joemamaohio "Music Within" shows us that you don't have to wear tights and fly through the air to be considered a hero.The movie tells the true story of Richard Pimentel (who was acted perfectly by the underrated Ron Livingston), a man who was unloved in life, but had a knack for public speaking. He even auditioned to a prestigious college for the speech team, but was turned down because he lacked real experience.So Richard enlists in Vietnam, and during the time there he's a victim of a bombing which took away his sense of hearing. Newly disabled, he tries to get a job only to run into continuous roadblocks because of his newfound liability.He forms an odd friendship with Art Honeyman (also wonderfully portrayed by Michael Sheen), a man with a crippling disability that renders his body mostly useless, but still maintains an above-average intelligence. Together they take on the system that has shunned them, and thanks to their persistence and effort, Richard is given the opportunity to run programs that allows the disabled to be hired in government positions.Richard Pimentel is an anti-hero. He drinks, he ignores his girlfriend, and he's volatile...which goes to show that a hero doesn't always have to be perfect...they just have to have a vision and the determination to see that vision come to fruition. A truly inspiring story.

non-shill *** CONTAINS SPOILERS*** *** CONTAINS SPOILERS*** *** CONTAINS SPOILERS***This movie might have been halfway decent had they put an actor in the lead role. To be clear, an "actor" is "one who acts". Ron Livingston reads lines. Big difference.What am I talking about? Oh, nothing much, just a total inability for Livingston to display emotion. Just consider all the scenarios in which Livingston's character fails to express any real emotion: He loses most of his hearing and has an awful, maddening case of tinnitus. No emotion. Someone calls his friend a "retard". No emotion. He wakes up with the girl he just slept with and finds another man in the house, who the girl also sleeps with. No emotion. A restaurant kicks him and his friend out (and has them arrested!) for being disabled. No emotion. He realizes he alienated his girlfriend by putting his career first. No emotion. His girlfriend tells him she is leaving him. No emotion. He finds the dead body of one of his friends. No emotion.And so on.