"Reign Over Me" **1/2 (out of four): Writer-director Mike Binder's well-meaning but overlong study of a man coping with loss in the wake of 9/11 collapses under the weight of its own good intentions.

Despite how it’s being advertised, “Reign Over Me”, Mike Binder’s rumination on grief and loss, is not a “9/11 movie”. There is only what you might call a “light dusting” of references to the tragic events of that day, and though the film takes place in New York City, there are no longing studies of the famously fractured skyline or of Ground Zero. Charlie, the film’s alarmingly repressed protagonist, is referred to as the one “whose family was on the plane”. There are also allusions to people coming from “halfway around the world.” And though September 11th itself is never mentioned, September 12th is. So it’s clear what we’re dealing with here. Charlie (Adam Sandler) was a promising young dentist and family man until he lost his family that day. Charlie’s parents died when he was a child so his only remnants of family are a set of in-laws too wrapped up in their own loss to recognize Charlie’s right to grieve. And with the deck stacked so heroically against him – his wife, three daughters and their poodle were on the plane - it’s clear Mr. Binder is earnestly, if a bit crudely, playing for keeps.

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