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Rating:  - I'll be there
not bad movie, but not great. However service is first rate
Rating:  - Sam Waite
This movie will become a Family classic favorite and the Music is superb. Great music, script, acting, photography and directing. All without the Hollywood scat treatment. A fun and uplifting movie that all ages can enjoy.
If you wish to see Charlotte Church be an angel... and sing the music that she has become famous for... forget that. She plays a daughter with a golden voice hidden from her mother. She sings a classical piece as well as George Gershwin's Summertime aria in a manner to rival Ella Fitzgerald. That is great praise for a Welsh lady, singing a Southern American classic.
All of the the actors were awesome in their British quirkiness. The ensemble of actors brought this script to life and obviously all had great fun doing it. For most of them I do not think they were acting. They were themselves, dressed up to play and work with friends. It is they that lift this movie from the ranks of good family entertainment to superb family entertainment.
I have purchased more than one copy of this DVD movie. Many as gifts to family and friends who had never heard of it in American Theatres.
Five Stars for good entertainment.
Rating:  - This movie is a clunker
Wasted talent. None of the characters are believable in the roles they are portraying. Some funny stuff. Craig Ferguson can do better. Charlotte Church should stick to singing as acting is not her forte. Every thing in this movie seems forced and there is no chemistry between the characters.
Rating: - This is a Wonderful Movie - Funny and touching
This is the best of the Craig Ferguson's films, Saving Grace is a close second, and The Big Tease, is a third favorite. He is a middle age rock star on the edge of losing complete control, his "saving grace" that pulls him back from the edge is to find out his has an unknown child, a teenage daughter. The whole movie is funny and touches us in lots of ways. A great movie and worth your money.
Rating:  - You don't have to be a Charlotte fan to enjoy this film
I put off watching this movie for some time. I've had a hard time accepting the fact that the Charlotte Church so many of us fell in love with, seemingly one of the last remaining bastions of wholesomeness and all-around purity in this world, has caught a virulent case of Britney-itis (and has actually sunk even lower than Britney in a fair number of ways) and is seemingly lost to us forever. I'm really quite saddened by the whole situation. Nevertheless, I can still adore the girl Charlotte Church used to be, and, happily, there are traces of that girl immortalized forever in this film. I was actually quite surprised by I'll Be There; Charlotte's no Jodie Foster, but she's a far better actress than I expected her to be, and this really and truly is a good movie. It doesn't take us anywhere we've haven't been before, but it's a fun ride.
Charlotte plays Olivia Edmonds, a teenaged girl who finds out that her father is actually famed aging rock star Paul Kerr (Craig Ferguson), just after he makes headlines for driving his motorcycle out a second story window of his home. Olivia's mother never told her the truth about her father because the relationship was short-lived (Kerr never even knew he had a daughter) and she resents the fact that her own still-rocking father was never there for her growing up. She wants Olivia to join her hairdressing business and stay away from musicians at all costs. We all know Charlotte has the best singing voice in the whole bloody kingdom, but her mother does not realize just how talented her daughter Olivia really is. Anyway, Olivia and Kerr slowly develop a relationship with one another, helped immeasurably by Kerr's decision to stop drinking - but dear old Mum wants nothing to do with the man she's obviously still in love with. Everything comes to a head when Olivia's talent is made manifest, and you can probably fill in the rest yourself.
As I said, I'll Be There doesn't break any new ground, but it's a feel-good movie that succeeds extremely well. Craig Ferguson makes it all work and injects a lot of comedy into everything he does. As writer, director, and star, this really is Ferguson's baby and should have enjoyed more success than it achieved. It even supplies the somewhat disconcerting sight of the Buffyverse's Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) playing a smarmy music agent - earrings and all. Of course, you also have the added attraction of several Charlotte Church songs (even if they do represent her early foray into pop). All told, I'll Be There is a surprisingly entertaining, heart-warming motion picture - and those are few and far between these days.
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