Movie Review: The Whole Ten Yards

The Whole Ten Yards (2004) 

Directed by Howard Deutch 

Written by George Gallo 

Starring Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, Natasha Henstridge 

Release Date April 7th, 2004

Published April 7th, 2004 

The Whole Ten Yards is the perfect example of why we hate most sequels. Whereas sequels such as the Star Wars episodes, Matrix or Kill Bill Volume 2 are natural extensions of their originators, most sequels are greedy attempts to capitalize on a previous success. The Whole Ten Yards would not exist without the success of the first film, it exists solely because of the greed of the producers and has no artistic aspiration whatsoever.

Rejoining the story of dentist Oz Oseransky (Matthew Perry) and his wife Cynthia (Natasha Henstridge), we find the happy couple in Los Angeles where Oz has fortified there home. He skittishly awaits mob reprisal for the death of Yanni Gogolak (Kevin Pollak). Cynthia is terribly annoyed of Oz’s constant fear and longs for the adventurousness of her ex-husband Jimmy “The Tulip” Tudeski (Bruce Willis).

Unknown to Oz, Cynthia has been in contact with Jimmy who is hiding out in Mexico with his new wife Jill (Amanda Peet). The two have settled into domesticity with Jill doing the contract killing and Jimmy becoming Martha Stewart. However it might be that Jimmy’s new attitude is all a ruse as he and Cynthia concoct a plan centered on the prison release of mob boss Lazlo Gogloak (Yanni’s brother, also played by Kevin Pollak). There’s something about Lazlo having $280 million dollars and Jimmy and Cynthia inventing a way to steal it, but the plot and the film as a whole are horribly convoluted.

Director Howard Deutch knows bad retreads having directed unnecessary sequels to Grumpy Old Men and The Odd Couple. Deutch brings nothing new or interesting to his work in The Whole Ten Yards except a relaxed attitude toward improvisation by his cast. The cast must have needed the improv if only to entertain themselves.

The cast is the film’s one strength. Perry, Willis, Henstridge and Peet have great chemistry and obviously enjoy working together. The obviously improvised moments are far funnier than anything in the script is. Amanda Peet is especially wonderful as Jill who is desperate for her first real contract killing after a number of spectacular failures. Peet was the best thing about the first film as well, which many people will only remember for her spectacular breasts.

Thanks to the cast, The Whole Ten Yards is not a complete disaster. Sadly, even as talented as the cast is, they can’t save this threadbare comic premise. They especially can’t overcome the obvious cynicism behind the film’s creation. I’m giving the film a four, one star for each of the principle cast members.

Movie Review: Bigger

Bigger (2018) 

Directed by George Gallo

Written by George Gallo 

Starring Tyler Hoechlin, Kevin Durand, Julianne Hough, Tom Arnold, Colton Haynes, D.J Qualls, Victoria Justice

Release Date October 12th, 2018

Published October 10th, 2018

Bigger stars Tyler Hoechlin, former Teen Wolf star and current Supergirl co-star, as Joe Weider. If that name sounds familiar it’s because it is the name behind the greatest fitness empire history. Joe Weider is, perhaps, best known for having discovered Arnold Schwarzenegger but his life was far more than that as he revolutionized the fitness game by creating bodybuilding as we know it and changing the way the world viewed getting in shape. 

Bigger begins poorly by taking us back, unnecessarily to the early life of Joe Weider and his brother Ben (Aneurin Barnard). We learn that Joe’s mother wanted him to be a girl and never came around to having two sons. She mistreats the brothers throughout their life and while Weider would go on to say that what his mother withheld from him and Ben became the impetus for building his empire to fill that void, it rings hollow if you consider it as him crediting emotional abuse for being successful. 

The film begins to get watchable when Tyler Hoechlin finally takes the role as Joe and Ben leave Toronto behind and move on to college and empire-building. Unfortunately, this leads to another brief derailment in Joe’s first marriage. Former Nickelodeon star Victoria Justice plays Kathy Weider and the characterization here is pretty odd. Initially, the chemistry between Justice and Hoechlin isn’t bad but director George Gallo fumbles that very quickly. 

Needing to get Kathy out of the story to move on to the more interesting part of Joe Weider’s life, Gallo chooses to have Kathy pretend she has completely forgotten who she married. From their first meeting to their first date through their marriage, Joe is consistently only interested in bodybuilding, nutrition and health. It’s all this version of Joe Weider ever talks about. He shoots everything including his first kiss through the prism of health and fitness as a metaphor for life and love. 

So when Kathy returns home to find Joe and Ben working on their muscle and fitness magazine in their dining room Kathy, seemingly out of nowhere, takes umbrage. Kathy is shocked that the man who has talked almost nonstop about his plans to legitimize weightlifting as a sport and a lifestyle is suddenly spending his time building his dream. She turn angry and bitter and by the end of the scene an editing dissolve sends Kathy packing. 

Amid the tumult of Joe’s personal life, his professional life becomes a struggle as a more established bodybuilding publisher named Hauk keeps preventing the best bodybuilders in Canada from working with Joe. Hauk, played by character actor Kevin Durand, is a loutish, boorish, bully who tries to keep the Weider brothers from getting into his field of business. When Joe finally gains a foothold by proving his methods of training and nutrition are superior, Hauk finds other ways to try to derail his competition. 

Kevin Durand is by far the worst thing about Bigger. I get that he’s a villainous character whom we are supposed to dislike and distrust but Durand’s big, broad, oafish performance stretches credulity. Sure, Mr Hauk is not remembered to this day for a reason while the Weider’s went on to riches and fame and that does seem to indicate that much of what Bigger says about Hauk is based in some reality, Durand’s caricature of Hauk is far too silly and broad to be taken seriously. 

I have spent more time complaining about aspects of Bigger than praising the movie which is strange considering I am recommending the movie. So, let’s talk about the positives. I really liked Tyler Hoechlin’s performance as Joe Weider. I enjoyed how earnestly and honestly to the exclusion of all other things, Joe Weider was dedicated to his craft. The script is a tad broad but Hoechlin had me believing in Joe Weider’s obsessive personality that finds him looking at sex as something athletic and marketable. 

Hoechlin also sparks well with Julianne Hough as Joe’s second wife, legendary pinup Betty Weider. Betty was a model who Joe first spied on the cover of a magazine. Eventually, he would use his connections via his good friend Jack Lalanne (Colton Haynes) to arrange a meeting that he then uses to cast Betty for a photo shoot with one of his bodybuilders. The bodybuilder in question turns out to be Joe himself and the two begin falling madly in love. 

As I said, the chemistry between Hoechlin and Hough is terrific. Unfortunately, director George Gallo nearly ruins this relationship as well with his whipsawing female emotional developments. For no good reason, Betty nearly breaks up with Joe because he talked about fitness in the bedroom. Once again, it’s a case of marriage amnesia as Betty is forced to briefly forget the man she married and ask that he be an entirely different person who doesn’t speak exclusively via the language and metaphor of bodybuilding and fitness. 

I’m not kidding when I tell you that I found the single minded way that the script and Hoechlin play Joe Weider is charming. As a character, Joe Weider is fully formed, he is a bodybuilding obsessive who single mindedness drive can either making him irresistibly earnest and naive or can drive people to want to smack him in the face to see if they can find an actual human being beyond the tightly coiled musculature. 

Bigger is not groundbreaking, it’s barely even something I can recommend. Joe Weider doesn’t have a real arc in the traditional sense. Weider appears to move from success to success in his career without fail and even in lean times his single minded approach to getting what he wants sustains him. Tyler Hoechlin mines that to create a fully formed if quite odd character. Joe Weider was an oddball but Hoechlin makes him a really interesting oddball, even as the movie around him crumbles under any real scrutiny. 

Hoechlin is so winning that I can’t help but recommend Bigger. Oh and one more note: the bodybuilder turned actor who portrays the young Arnold Schwarzenegger, circa 1968, is outstanding. Calum Van Moger looks ludicrously like a young Schwarzenegger. It’s uncanny when he’s first revealed and when he’s posing in the first Mr Olympia, Von Moger unveils that classic Schwarzenegger grin as one final flawless touch on a very minor performance. 

Movie Review: Codename The Cleaner

Codename The Cleaner (2006) 

Directed by Les Mayfield 

Written by George Gallo 

Starring Cedric the Entertainer, Lucy Liu 

Release Date January 5th, 2006 

Published January 5th, 2006

I like Cedric The Entertainer, as a stand up comic. As part of the Original Kings of Comedy and on his own HBO comedy special, Cedric has shown a real talent for ribald racial humor and sly family comedy, along with indulging his love of music and humorous dance productions. His film work however, has never been able to capture the same affable personality.

As a matter of fact, Cedric’s film career has simply sucked. From Johnson Family Vacation to Man of the House to his latest starring effort Codename: The Cleaner, Cedric The Entertainer has flailed and flopped about in search of a good joke and most often comes up empty.

Codename: The Cleaner actually has what could be a clever premise in more skilled hands. Combining a dash of Chris Nolan's Memento with a touch of The Bourne Identity inside a comedy plot, the idea is there, but the execution is pitiful.

Jake Rogers (Cedric The Entertainer) woke up on the wrong side of the wrong bed this morning. Unable to remember his own name, Jake has even bigger problems than amnesia. There is a dead FBI agent in the bed with him and a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills at the foot of the bed. Did Jake kill this guy? If so why? If not, who did?

In the lobby Jake meets Diane (Nicolette Sheridan) who claims to be his wife. She knows all about his desperate situation and spirits him away to a mansion that he has no memory of living in. Jake has some kind of computer chip hidden somewhere that might help him clear his memory and figure out what all is happening and Diane desperately wants it. When her seduction skills fail to jog Jake's memory she plans to torture him, but before she can Jake escapes.

Following what little clues he has about himself, a video game company ID card and a taste for pancakes, Jake finds himself at a diner across from the videogame company where he is greeted by yet another beautiful woman, Gina (Lucy Liu), who also claims to be his significant other. She informs Jake that he is no more than a simple janitor, but Jake can't shake the idea that he is somehow a high powered secret agent.

Directed by Les Mayfield (Blue Streak,American Outlaws), Codename: The Cleaner plays like a script Martin Lawrence passed on several years ago. Cedric The Entertainer mugs and moons all he can to try inject some life into this film, one made for a big comic personality like his, but unfortunately, the goofy plot and Mayfield's inept direction keep interrupting Cedric's flow.

The comedy of Codename: The Cleaner works in small doses of Cedric being Cedric. In investigating his mysterious situation, Jake finds himself dressed in Dutch boy blues and clog dancing for a wildly entertained crowd. This is Cedric The Entertainer in his comfort zone, acting goofy; independent of the ridiculous plot. The scene is entirely unnecessary and superfluous but it's also one of the rare funny moments in otherwise laughless exercise.

I've liked Lucy Liu since her weird/sexy role on TV's Ally McBeal. It's a shame that her film career has been so wildly hit and miss. Her starring roles here and in the action flick Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever show that she should definitely avoid titles with colons in the middle, but also that maybe being a lead actress is not her strong suit. Supporting roles in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and this year's terrific but sadly underseen, Lucky Number Slevin, have been a far better showcase for her skill, her range and her beauty.

There is no denying that Cedric The Entertainer is a funny guy and that even in something as idiotic as Codename: The Cleaner he can find laughs. But no matter how funny Cedric is; Codename: The Cleaner was doomed the moment director Les Mayfield took the helm. Mayfield's resume reads like something only a mother, or Shawn Levy, could love. Blue Streak, American Outlaws, The Man, Ugh! Les Mayfield is to bad comedy what Uwe Boll is to the poorly made video game based horror film.

Now I always seem to get emails when I inject large issues into innocuous movies, especially when I talk about the treatment of women in films. However, Codename: The Cleaner is yet another film that treats its female cast members with contempt. There is no doubt that both Lucy Liu and Nicolette Sheridan are beautiful women who turn heads whether in business attire or bikinis, but was it necessary for them to wrestle nearly nude in bubbles? Not that I didn't enjoy the visual, but the gratuity of this dream sequence is beyond anything any right thinking director could justify.

As attractive as the visual is, I felt ashamed for Lucy Liu for taking part in such a degrading and unnecessary scene. As for Sheridan, her towel drop with Terrell Owens on Monday Night Football and her regular gig in the nighttime soap Desperate Housewives makes such a scene rather par for the course for her career which also includes a number of softcore straight to video flicks. That fact doesn’t change how sexist and pointless this scene was. 

Codename: The Cleaner is not offensively bad but it's far from anything I could recommend even to the most ardent fan of Cedric The Entertainer. Director Les Mayfield continues an embarrassing string of unfunny films that is likely to continue regardless of this film's box office failure. Like an old school studio hack, Mayfield makes the kind of cheap, high concept garbage that studios seem to like dumping into January, February and other non-blockbuster months.

As long as there are stand up comics in need of a quick paycheck and studios in need of dim-witted filler material; the Les Mayfield's of the world will always find work.