Reach Me is a 2014 American drama film directed and written by John Herzfeld. The film stars Sylvester Stallone, Kyra Sedgwick, Terry Crews, Thomas Jane, Kevin Connolly, Lauren Cohan, Kelsey Grammer, and Tom Berenger. 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 and reading Napoleon Hill's self-help book, Think and Grow Rich, although Herzfeld says the film is "not about getting rich, but believing in yourself."
Cast
Sylvester Stallone as Gerald
Kyra Sedgwick as Collette
Thomas Jane as Wolfie
Lauren Cohan as Kate
Kelsey Grammer as Angelo AldoBrandini
Kevin Connolly as Roger King
Tom Berenger as Teddy
Nelly as E-Ruption
Omari Hardwick as Dominic
Terry Crews as Wilson
Danny Trejo as Vic
Danny Aiello as Father Paul
Ryan Kwanten as Jack Burns
David O'Hara as Thumper
Elizabeth Henstridge as Eve
Rebekah Chaney as Denise-Denise
Chuck Zito as Joe
Tom Sizemore as Frank
Cary Elwes 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. After Stallone committed to participate, other actors agreed to join the cast at minimum pay rates. Herzfeld recruited another long-time friend, Danny Aiello, 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 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, 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 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, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 21% based on 14 reviews.