Movie Review: Uptown Girls

Uptown Girls (2003) 

Directed by Boaz Yakin

Written by Allison Jacobs 

Starring Brittany Murphy, Dakota Fanning, Marley Shelton, Donald Faison, Heather Locklear

Release Date August 15th, 2003

Published August 15th, 2003  

Much like Heath Ledger, Brittany Murphy is a star who was seemingly thrust upon us by the Hollywood-marketing machine. Ever since her debut as the sweetly naive makeover victim in Clueless, Murphy seemed destined for years of best friend supporting roles, and maybe a television career. Somewhere along the line that changed and Hollywood decided she would be a star. The first test of that stardom is the slight girl-power comedy Uptown Girls co-starring true star in the making Dakota Fanning.

In Uptown Girls, directed by Remember The Titans Boaz Yakin, Murphy is Molly Gunn. Molly is the trust fund party girl daughter of a dead rock star. With millions in the bank and an accountant paying the bills, Molly's life is filled with clubbing and sleeping. Molly did attend college but has never held a job. That all changes when Molly's accountant runs off with her millions, leaving her nothing.

Molly is forced to move in with friends, first her stuck up prissy best friend Ingrid (Marley Shelton) and then her non-threatening male best friend Huey (Donald Faison). Molly must also get a job for the first time in her life, which Huey helps her out getting. He sets her up in a job working as a nanny for a precocious 8- year old named Ray (Dakota Fanning). Ray is the daughter of a record company executive (Heather Locklear in a cameo), who doesn't want a nanny. Ray is the strangest 8-year old on the planet, neurotic on par with Woody Allen, a neat freak, and fan of classical music.

What do you bet that Molly's wild child will have conflict with Ray's orderly clean lifestyle? Not the most original premise and not the most original script either. This puts the onus on Murphy and Fanning to carry the film through it's dull familiarity. Neither actress sadly is up to that task. Both actresses work very hard but the strain shows in scenes of treacle sentimentality.

These problems should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the work of director Boaz Yakin who is one of the rare directors who aspires to mediocrity. His goal is the mid range. He goes for smiles where better directors go for laughs and melodrama where better directors go for actual drama. His Remember The Titans was a blockbuster that got better reviews than it deserved thanks to the charisma and talent of Denzel Washington. That film was stuffed with every sports movie cliche imaginable and topped of with more melodrama than daytime TV. The same could be said of Uptown Girls, though thankfully without the sports.

Movie Review: A Perfect Getaway

A Perfect Getaway (2009) 

Directed by David Twohy

Written by David Twohy 

Starring Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant, Marley Shelton, Chris Hemsworth, Steve Zahn

Release Date August 7th, 2009

Published August 7th, 2009

Beware the movie trailer/commercial that tells you of a 'heart-stopping' twist. Right then and there the marketing has spoiled the movie. Now the experience of the movie is waiting for the twist to happen or, in the case of the new thriller A Perfect Getaway, guessing the twist well before it happens. A Perfect Getaway isn't a great movie to begin with. Having the ending spoiled is merely the moldy cherry on top of a melted sundae.

Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich star in A Perfect Getaway as Cliff and Cydney Anderson, newlyweds in Hawaii for their honeymoon. Having decided to hike to a secluded beach on a very remote part of Kauai they think they are in for some romantic alone time. Instead, they are quickly jolted out of their fantasies by two pairs of strangers. 

The first are a dangerous looking pair of hitchhikers, Kale and Cleo (Chris Hemsworth and Marley Shelton), who look fresh from a parole hearing. Then there are Nick and Gina (Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez). Nick is ex-special ops and unafraid of telling tales of murder and injury. Gina meanwhile, is a little too good with a knife and fearless. When Nick brings a dead goat back to the couple's shared campsite, Gina guts and cleans it, much to the disgust of both Cliff and Cydney.

Soon, news arrives that a murder has taken place. A newlywed couple has been murdered on the island that both of the newly arrived couples have just left and police suspect the killer are a man and a woman and that they may have jumped islands. Naturally, Cliff and Cydney come to suspect Nick and Gina are the killers. Ahh, but what of the Kale and Cleo, the nefarious looking couple?

Cliff is a screenwriter by trade and this leads to an inside baseball conversation between he and Nick that the movie thinks is exceptionally clever. Director David Twohey (Pitch Black, Chronicles of Riddick)  seems to think that by having his characters talk so openly about thriller clichés in mocking tones that that will excuse his movie from taking advantage of those clichés. The meta trick doesn't pay off, we can still see the wheels of the plot turning quite obviously.

Now, it's likely that I have seen too many movies and thus am more difficult to fool than those who don't see so many of the same movies over and over again. Indeed, I can see a less experienced audience taken in by A Perfect Getaway. Me, I wasn't fooled for a second. The clumsy plot fails to hide very particular details that are relatively easy to discern, especially if you aren't taken in by these characters and this dimwitted story. 

That said, A Perfect Getaway isn't without some charm. I did love the detailed stories that Nick tells about his many wild exploits. Timothy Olyphant oozes charismatic danger. He's just off kilter enough to keep you afraid of him but humorous and engaging enough to make you want to root for him, whether he's the killer or the one about to be killed. Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich on the other hand? Ugh. Trying to bust out of their acting molds, she as a badass action heroine, he as a goofball comic relief sidekick, the pair desperately overplay the yuppie-ness of their characters. That may or may not be by design but that doesn't make it any less irritating.

So, what of this 'pulse pounding' twist? The film does everything it can to cheat around uber-aware audience members like me, even throwing out knowing dialogue about red-herrings, or as Olyphant mistakenly calls them 'red snappers'. The cheats are bothersome and rather than forcing call backs to earlier in the movie, as I am sure they are supposed to, they cause one to reconsider the whole movie and realize how much of a cheat the whole thing really is.

A Perfect Getaway needed to settle one aspect of the essential nature of its story and it could have succeeded in a modest way. Instead, the film cheats and hopes you won't notice. I did notice, repeatedly, and that combined with the irksome performances by Jovovich and Zahn make A Perfect Getaway a chore to endure.