Movie Review MacGruber

MacGruber (2010) 

Directed by Jorme Taccone 

Written by Will Forte, Jorme Taccone, John Solomon

Starring Will Forte, Powers Boothe, Ryan Phillippe, Kristen Wiig

Release Date May 21st, 2010

Published May22nd, 2010 

There have been so many things written about the history of Saturday Night Live and the movies that adding to the pile seems a waste of time. I will keep the history lesson brief, we all know the translation between sketch and feature has been less than stellar. I'm sure I am not the only one who thanks heaven there was no Church Lady or Hans and Frans movies, thank you Dana Carvey for your restraint.

And as evidenced by the dearth of SNL-movie related content written in relation to the latest SNL feature, I know I wasn’t the only one dreading the release of MacGruber. Based on a series of interstitial gags created by star Will Forte, MacGruber held little promise of feature length success. It's great to be surprised; MacGruber doesn't suck.

Will Forte is MacGruber, an ex-military man hiding out as a priest in some unspecified jungle on a self imposed Rambo-esque exile when he is approached by his former commander Colonel James Faith (Powers Boothe). There is a threat to the homeland and it comes from the man who killed MacGruber's bride on their wedding day, the evil weapons dealer Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer).

Colonel Faith wants MacGruber to come back to the US and stop Cunth from using a massive nuclear weapon on the US. He also wants MacGruber to work with top new military man Lt. Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe) but MacGruber has other ideas. Our hero has a team to put together, one that fans of the WWE will absolutely love. What happens to that team and how MacGruber ends up working with Piper and Mac's old flame Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) is something for you to discover. All I'll say is 'classic MacGruber.'

I have brought a little more order to the plot than actually exists on the screen; MacGruber doesn't really play as a straight narrative feature. Will Forte and director Jorme Taccone wrote the script for MacGruber and kept true to the sketch show roots of the character by creating a feature that is really just a series of gags. Sure, there is something of a narrative line that travels throughout but mostly MacGruber just hits one gag after another and somehow the form holds.

The gags of MacGruber work one after the other after the other. A few build throughout, including MacGruber's odd attachment to his car stereo, but most are one off jokes and references to 80's pop tunes. And then there is the filth. MacGruber is shockingly filthy with R-rated material that might make the Judd Apatow crew uncomfortable. 

Part of the shock comes from the unexpected, MacGruber can't use so many variations of the F-word when he's on network TV. He also cannot have two of the most awkward, off-putting and hysterical sex scenes since Leslie Nielsen and Lisa Marie Presley donned giant condoms in Naked Gun. 

MacGruber's supporting cast is right along with him making the awkward into the hysterical. Kristen Wiig is expectedly up to the task but Ryan Phillippe is the one who gets the big assist late with a sight gag that lives up to the word gag. Val Kilmer is a rich choice for the goofy bad guy. The now chubby cheeked star plays a wonderfully straight bad guy to MacGruber's over the top good guy. 

Tossing dignity and good taste to the wind, the cast of MacGruber crafts a series of jokes that somehow adds up to a feature film. MacGruber doesn't really tell us much about the future of Will Forte as a star but as a gag writer with a great ear for just the right cheesy 80's pop song; he's kind of a genius. MacGruber thrives on Forte's instinct for brilliant bad taste.

Movie Review: Frailty

Frailty (2002) 

Directed by Bill Paxton 

Written by Brent Hanley 

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Levi Kreis, Bill Paxton 

Release Date April 12th, 2002 

Published April 12th, 2002

I have never liked Bill Paxton in a movie. In fact, after watching him destroy any chance I had to enjoy Titanic, I outright loathed him. I've gotten over the Titanic thing but my opinion of Paxton hasn't improved much. Paxton's resume boasts a number of titles that I have panned over the years including Vertical Limit, Mighty Joe Young and Trespass. Some have told me he's very good in A Simple Plan, I haven't seen it because he's in it.

The image of Paxton that I can't seem to shake though is his turn as Chet in Weird Science. For as long as I see Bill Paxton I will see that brutish pig, farting and saying intensely stupid things. It's actually his best performance. This is the bias I brought to my viewing of Paxton's directorial debut Frailty.

On a rainy Dallas, Texas night, FBI agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) arrives at his office to interview a man who claims to have evidence in Doyle's current investigation of the so-called God's Hand Killer. In Doyle's office sits a man calling himself Fenton Mieks (Matthew Mcconaughey) and he does have a heck of a story to tell. Fenton explains that he knows who the God's Hand Killer is, because he is his brother Adam (Levi Kreis). Of course Doyle is skeptical, but after a small part of Fenton's story is confirmed he decides to hear him out. From there Fenton rolls into a tale right out of a Stephen King novel.

In flashback, we see Fenton and his younger brother Adam walking home from school. The boy's mother is dead and they are raised by their loving father (Paxton). Things turn bad when, in the middle of the night, Fenton's Dad has what he says was a vision from God telling him that there are demons walking in human form, and that the family has been chosen by God to kill the demons. Young Adam believes his Dad without question but Fenton is frightened and believes his father is crazy. From there Fenton and Adam are forced by their father to witness and take part in brutal killings that Dad says aren't murders, because they weren't human.

Young Fenton is played by Matthew O'Leary. Far from his cute villain in Spy Kids 2, O'Leary carries a great deal of the film's drama and carries it off very well. As for Paxton, while many were impressed by his performance, all I could see was that same rock headed lummox he played in Weird Science and Trespass and just about everything else he's been in. McConaughey is strong but undone by the film's ridiculous ending.

It isn't just the ending that bothered me about Frailty. While I must credit Paxton on his directing, which is sure handed and frighteningly good in a number of scenes, the film has a rote quality to it. As the film is telling a gripping story about Fenton's horrific childhood trauma, Boothe and McConaughey are setting up the finale which goes completely off the deep end. Granted that it had very little choice of where to go. With any conventional ending being way too obvious, Paxton and writer Bett Hanley had to do something twisty. Unfortunately, what they chose is so off the charts ridiculous that the film collapses.

Paxton may have a good future as a director, but more importantly, anything that might keep him from acting is fine by me.