Movie Review Sweet Home Alabama

Sweet Home Alabama (2002)

Directed by Andy Tennant 

Written by C Jay Cox 

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, Patrick Dempsey, Candace Bergen, Fred Ward, Jean Smart

Release Date September 27th, 2002

Published September 24th, 2002 

In Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon showed herself to be the romantic comedy heiress apparent to Julia Roberts. With her perky good looks and sugary sweetness offset by a wonderfully mischievous smile it was impossible not to fall in love with her. Witherspoon brings those same qualities to her latest film, Sweet Home Alabama, but under the direction of Andy Tennent the same qualities that made you love her in Legally Blonde make you loathe her in this dense retread of every romantic comedy ever made.

In Alabama Reese has one of those great Hollywood lives where everything is perfect: perfect job, perfect friends, perfect man, just perfect. As Melanie Carmichael, Reese is a New York fashion designer about to marry the son of New York’s Mayor. Patrick Dempsey plays the perfect guy, Andrew, just going through the motions playing the same role Bill Pullman played in Sleepless in Seattle. No matter how good a guy he is, the trailer has already explained his fate.

After Andrew asks Melanie to marry him, Melanie has to go home to Alabama to take care of the small detail of her current husband Jake (Josh Lucas). In flashback we are treated to the scene when Jake and Melanie fell in love, they were struck by lightning as the shared their first kiss. Watching this scene my eyes rolled so far back I could see the dull faces of the people directly behind me. You can say I’m cynical but haven’t we seen this exact seen or something very similar at least a thousand times? Melanie and Jake’s bad sitcom style arguing is just one of a million tip offs that they will back together at the end of the film.

Having returned to her home town for the first time in 7 years Melanie takes time to revisit her old friends including Bobby Ray (Ethan Embry) who has a secret only Melanie knows about, the kind of secret that stereotypical southerners don’t react well to. There is also Melanie’s former best friend Lurlynn (Melanie Lynskie) who now has three kids including a newborn she takes to the bar as so many southerners are prone to do. Let us not forget Melanie’s parents Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place, who don’t so much fit into the role of stereotypical Southern parents that everyone in the audience assumed they would be.

So golly, do you think Melanie’s unusual southern friends and family will clash with her high class New York would be in laws?

Poor Candace Bergen, this wonderfully talented Emmy winning actress is stuck with the film's most thankless role. As the ever scowling and disapproving mother-in-law, Bergen is never allowed to smile, never allowed to joke. The purpose of Bergen’s Mayor of New York and mother of the groom is to be the bitch so at the end of the movie she can get her comeuppance in what is supposed to make the audience cheer.

That is the essence of the problem with Sweet Home Alabama, every scene has been filmed with the purpose of exerting a particular response from the audience. It is as if every scene in the film was individually test screened by demographic to make sure it illicited the correct audience response.

Like a romantic comedy machine, Sweet Home Alabama grinds through it’s mechanical plot, perfectly calibrated to meet exactly what the audience expects. The film is so predictable even lines of dialogue can be anticipated. Scenes are setup ten to twenty minutes ahead so, rather than watch the movie, I was sitting and waiting for the expected payoff and like clockwork I didn’t have to wait long for it in exactly the way I expected.

Sweet Home Alabama is the latest film to exhibit my biggest movie pet peeve. A film based on seemingly intelligent characters making intensely dumb decisions because if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be a movie. Not a frame of film goes by that Melanie doesn’t have an opportunity to solve all her problems with one intelligent decision. One line of intelligent dialogue and problem solved, movie over.

Sweet Home Alabama is an awful film and I had very low expectations for this film. I expected to laugh a couple times, fall in love with Reese Witherspoon again and leave the theater with a smile on my face. Instead I walked out depressed after seeing a film that illustrates everything that is wrong modern Hollywood film-making. This is yet another film that had a poster before it had a screenplay. A film where marketing execs made the creative decisions and hired creative people to carry out the vision of the publicity department. Director Andy Tennent was likely instructed to simply make Reese look cute and hope that the writers might squeeze in a sight gag or one liner somewhere, spoiler alert: they didn’t.

To steal a line from my hero Roger Ebert I hated, hated, hated this movie. This film does not improve upon the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. I still love Reese Witherspoon, but only because I watched Legally Blonde. Had I not, I might curse her for having made this film. Hollywood has no shame churning out the same drivel month after month. And I know what you're saying and yes I shouldn’t act so surprised but I honestly believe that there is art out there somewhere, Sweet Home Alabama dims that hope slightly but that dream is still there.

Movie Review: Trapped

Trapped (2002)

Directed by Luis Mandoki 

Written by Greg Iles

Starring Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend, Kevin Bacon, Courtney Love, Dakota Fanning 

Release Date September 20th, 2002 

Published September 20th, 2002 

One would hope that the recent spate of child kidnappings would preclude Hollywood hacks from using that situation as a screenwriting trick. The child in danger plot is the cheapest of the cheap manipulative tricks screenwriters use when they are creatively bankrupt. We, however should not be surprised that Hollywood doesn't care. These hacks have so little ingenuity that the child in danger is the only tool in their box. The god-awful action film, Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever employs this cliche, and the film Trapped does Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever one better by basing the entire film on the hackneyed plot device.

Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend star as a loving husband and wife with a cute as a button daughter. When Townsend leaves on a business trip, a sleazy con artist played by Kevin Bacon seizes the opportunity to kidnap Townsend's daughter and hold his wife hostage. As this is happening, Townsend himself is taken hostage by Bacon's partner, played by Courtney Love. Pruitt Taylor Vince rounds out the cast as the kidnapper with a soft spot for the kid and a softer head who is easily manipulated by the plot. Essentially the daughter will be held for 24 hours, after which ransom will be paid and the child will be returned to the parents.

Bacon is effectively creepy, while Love does a variation of her real life persona, as a drugged out nympho. Townsend and Theron are wooden and surprisingly dull. (Well, at least Townsend was surprisingly dull.) Earlier this year, Townsend starred in Queen Of The Damned, and though that film was very bad, Townsend had some effectively scary moments that, in a better film, could have been star-making moments. In Trapped, Townsend is woefully miscast as a rich yuppie doctor who still dresses as if he were an 18-year old skater with a gold card.

Trapped is undone by its premise and screenwriter Greg Iles, who also wrote the book on which the film is based. Iles and director Luis Mandoki apparently don't read the newspaper, though it doesn't take a genius to intuit how many people might be sensitive to the kidnapping of a child being used as a plot. Films that put children in danger are some of the lowest forms of film--right up there with white actors in blackface and Freddie Prinze Jr.

Trapped is the bastard stepchild of numerous child in danger films, and arguably the worst of the bunch.

Movie Review: The Banger Sisters

The Banger Sisters (2002) 

Directed by Bob Dolman

Written by Bob Dolman 

Starring Susan Sarandon, Goldie Hawn, Geoffrey Rush, Erika Christensen

Release Date September 20th, 2002 

Published September 19th, 2002 

Well, I can tell you I was not looking forward to this movie. I despise the acting of Goldie Hawn and have hated every movie she's ever been in, especially Goldie's most recent work, The First Wives Club, The Out Of Towners, and, the most dreadful of them all, Town & Country. So, imagine my surprise when The Banger Sisters turned out to be a very funny and sweet movie, which succeeds because Goldie Hawn is fantastic.

Hawn plays legendary rock groupie-turned-bartender Suzette. Fired from her job at LA's Whiskey A Go Go, Suzette decides to pay a visit to her old friend Vinny (Susan Sarandon), who together were dubbed The Banger Sisters. They were legendary groupies whose conquests included Jim Morrison, The Rolling Stones, Jimmy Page and a couple of roadies. 

Vinny has changed a lot since she last saw Suzette some 20 years earlier. Vinny is now Lavinia, an overbearing housewife and mother of two, whose husband has a future in politics. On her way to see Lavinia, Suzette meets Harry (Geoffrey Rush), a failed screenwriter on his way to Phoenix to kill his father. Harry is a hypochondriac with a desperate need for order, which, of course, Suzette completely disrupts. Once in Phoenix, Suzette decides that she doesn't want to mess up Lavinia's perfect life, until a chance encounter with Lavinia's daughter Hannah (Erika Christenson) changes her mind. Once they are reunited, Suzette begins to push Lavinia back towards her past life, and, as the memories come back, the perfect façade crumbles.

The Banger Sisters has many problems. The narrative is shoved along a little too quickly and some of the gags are barely sitcom level. However both Sarandon and Hawn are such pros that they elevate even the worst material to at least elicit a chuckle. Hawn is especially good as the free spirit who, for once, isn't a ditz. Hawn delivers a very funny and bawdy, yet sweet, performance.

Some have compared Hawn's groupie character in The Banger Sisters to her daughter's groupie performance in Almost Famous. It is a fair comparison, though Hawn's performance isn't the Oscar-caliber performance that Hudson's was. I would say that this could be a great extension of that same character.

The biggest problem with this film is its ending. Throughout the film, we are treated to some raunchy antics and regaled with stories of groupie debauchery, only at the end to be given an almost Disney-like happy ending which is very disappointing. Still, The Banger Sisters provides enough solid laughs for me to recommend it, though you might consider walking out before the last 10 minutes.

Movie Review: Ballistic Ecks vs Sever

Ballistic Ecks vs. Sever 

Directed by Kaos 

Written by Alan B. McElroy 

Starring Antonio Banderas, Lucy Liu, Gregg Henry, Ray Park, Talisa Soto 

Release Date September 20th, 2002 

Published September 19th, 2002 

Well I must admit I was growing complacent. After a series of good movies mixed with some average and below-average movies, I had forgotten about Hollywood’s ability to make truly horrible films. In the past month or so Hollywood had lulled me into a trance of average movies that left no impression, good or bad. The new movie, Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever, woke me from this trance with the loudest, dumbest, most idiotic movie this side of Rollerball. The byzantine plot of Ballistic is too ridiculous to explain. From what I was able to deduce, Lucy Liu played Sever and Antonio Banderas played Ecks. Other than that I am at a loss to explain the stupidity that passes for a plot. 

There is something about a weapon that was stolen from a lab in Germany. The microscopic weapon can cause heart attacks if it gets into the bloodstream, I think. There is something about a little kid that Sever takes as a hostage, something about Ecks' wife who he thought was dead but wasn't and Gregg Henry as the villain named Gant. The amazing thing about Gant is the audience has no clue why he does what he does. The movie teases that he is some public official but for the life of me I can't figure it out. 

We know Gant and his men can manipulate the local law enforcement of Vancouver, British Columbia, though we don't know why. Gant's men interact with the FBI but it's implied that they aren't with the FBI. There is some organization called the DIA. Whatever that is, the move never explains. We do know Gant wants this weapon, the heart attack weapon. The trailer is a better source than the film if you want to make sense of the weapons ability. Apparently you get it inside someone then it lays dormant until you press a button and it kills him or her. How do you get it inside someone? You shoot them. Of course that kind of defeats the purpose of the weapon doesn't it? 

Maybe you can rationalize that somehow, but how do you explain that the weapon is made of metal. So you have given the head of state a heart attack but your weapon is inside the body and easily detected in the autopsy, once again defeating the implied purpose of the weapon, which I believe is supposed to go undetected. It doesn't matter. Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever is a mess, which is appropriate because a guy who was credited as Kaos directed it. The irony is thick. The film is essentially a series of large explosions and that's it. The story is nonexistent, the script is a joke, the actors are completely lost and that is the only thing the audience can really relate too. 

Poor Lucy Liu and poor Antonio Banderas. While they deserve to be criticized for just being involved in this mess, I don't blame them for its failure. Both stars are attractive and charismatic. Unfortunately the director doesn't care. The only thing Kaos is interested in is getting to the next explosion ASAP. 

The director especially abuses Lucy Liu. Liu is an actress, yet in the films entire running length Lucy has 7 lines of dialogue. SEVEN. I counted them. That is less than Arnold Schwarzenegger in Hercules in New York and he could barely speak English then. Why hire an actress like Liu for a role that could have easily been filled by a stuntwomen? 

Stuntman Ray Park is also singled out for abuse, he has more dialogue than Lucy Liu and his character only exists for the purpose of being killed by Liu in a karate fight. Then there is Gregg Henry as the villainous Gant. Henry does his job in workmanlike fashion, oozing slime and dripping with evil. Gant actually gives us insight into which star got top billing. You see, whichever star kills Gant is the one with top billing. I will leave the mystery.

The most amazing thing about Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is the director’s ability to combine an incomprehensible plot with plot devices more predictable than a calendar. That is a true accomplishment. Is Ecks Vs Sever the worst film of 2002? I'm not sure. Rollerball, Fear Dot Com and Tart have strong arguments for that title. Ecks Vs Sever will be near the top of the list that is for sure.

Movie Review Stealing Harvard

Stealing Harvard (2002) 

Directed by Bruce McCulloch

Written by Peter Tolan

Starring Jason Lee, Tom Green, Leslie Mann, Dennis Farina, Megan Mullally, Richard Jenkins, John C. McGinley

Release Date September 13th, 2002 

Published September 12th, 2002 

In Freddy Got Fingered, Tom Green broke every rule of good filmmaking. In doing so, he created one of the more inept films in history. On the other hand, Green should be commended for one of the boldest attempts at comedy we've ever seen. To his credit, he put himself on the line, and though he failed spectacularly, the attempt was brave and bold. If only his new film Stealing Harvard had taken some of the risks that Green did in Freddy Got Fingered, rather than churning out yet another market-tested demographically- safe comedy.

Stealing Harvard stars View Askew legend Jason Lee as John Plummer, a soon-to-be-married medical supply salesman. Years ago, John made a promise to his niece that if she got into college, he would pay for it. In the meantime, John met and fell in love with Elaine (Leslie Mann). They were engaged and agreed to get married when they accumulated enough money to buy a house. It is no surprise then that as soon as John has enough money to get married, he finds out his niece has been accepted to Harvard and needs money.

From here, the film tweaks one of my movie pet peeves. A character can easily dispel a difficult situation by simply telling the truth, but doesn't because of the plot. There is absolutely no reason for John not to tell Elaine about his problem, except that if he does there wouldn't be a movie. I can't stand this trope, it's a plague inflicted by lazy, hack screenwriters of the world.

Therefore, instead of simply telling the truth, John enlists his buddy Duff (Green) who suggests they steal the money. After a series of outlandish robbery attempts and bids to cut deals with lowlifes, John finally comes clean with Elaine, who has the brilliant idea to steal from her father (who is also John's hateful boss (Dennis Farina). She could just ask her dad for the money, and he would likely give it to her ,despite his hatred of her fiancée, but if she did that we wouldn't have the ridiculous climax and tacked on a happy ending.

Director Bruce Mcculloch, formerly of Kids In The Hall, may not have much of an eye for story, but he does manage a light quick tone and a few solid laughs. Lee is solid though some of the material is beneath his talent. Green, once again playing himself, draws some of the biggest laughs. He has an amazing talent for physical humor, and because he is so unpredictable, the comic potential of his character is attention grabbing.

Stealing Harvard never had a chance to be a good film. Coming from the big studio system, this film was engineered with demographics ahead of script. Screenwriter Peter Tolan writes as if he was creating the marketing campaign as he was creating the story. It is truly a shame, with the talent there was a very funny movie to be made. Stealing Harvard just wasn't it.

Movie Review Igby Goes Down

Igby Goes Down

Directed by Burr Steers 

Written by Burr Steers

Starring Kieran Culkin, Claire Danes, Bill Pullman, Susan Sarandon, Ryan Phillippe, Jeff Goldblum

Release Date September 13th, 2002 

Published October 23rd, 2002

The meteoric rise and fall of Macauley Culkin is one of those cautionary tales of Hollywood that makes the E! True Hollywood Story so popular. The domineering father, the loving mother, the multi-millions of dollars flowing in and out of the home and the hints of abusiveness. There is a movie all its own in the Culkin family. Thankfully the fate suffered by Macauley provided a what-not-to-do roadmap for younger brother Kieran who is building a strong resume. A resume that should include an Oscar nomination for his title role in Igby Goes Down, if there is any justice in the world.

As Igby, Culkin is the son of a shrewish controlling Susan Surandon and a middle-aged and crazy Bill Pullman. Ryan Phillipe is Igby’s perfectionist brother Oliver and Jeff Goldblum plays his rich Godfather. Igby has a habit of being kicked out of every school he goes to, until finally he escapes on his own to New York where his knowledge of an affair between his Godfather and an artist played by Amanda Peet leads to his staying in a gorgeous New York loft, rent free. 

While on a weekend trip to his Godfather’s home in the Hamptons, Igby meets Sookie Sapperstein (Claire Danes), a college student moonlighting as a caterer's assistant. After Igby moves to New York, he and Sookie form a tentative romance that is the soul of the film. Their intelligent, funny and very well written exchanges are the highlights of this magnificent film.

Culkin and Danes are both sensational, their conversations foreshadowing their uncertain future. Like any good romance the roadblocks of this relationship are obvious but not acknowledged. Writer/Director Burr Steers never settles for typical romantic situations, he uses every opportunity to tease the audience with a happy ending without ever having to provide it. It is a very delicate balancing act of great acting, writing and direction.

Culkin is the film's centerpiece and it is his acerbic honesty and humor that makes Igby Goes Down such a great film. Danes and Phillippe are also excellent with Phillippe once again showing his amazing versatility, falling into his preppy clothes and manner the same way he embraced his down and dirty thief in The Way Of the Gun and his nerdy computer guy in Antitrust, a pair of guilty pleasure classics.

Indeed, the entire cast of Igby Goes Down is very good. The only issue I had with the film was not enough Bill Pullman. As Igby’s schizophrenic father Pullman has a very limited role but makes an amazing impression in his short screen time. Igby Goes Down is an incredible film with one of the best casts of the year headed up by Culkin in a performance guaranteed to be criminally overlooked by Oscar voters.

Movie Review: Barbershop

Barbershop (2002) 

Directed by Tim Story 

Written by Don D. Scott 

Starring Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, Troy Garity, Eve, Keith David, Anthony Anderson

Release Date September 13th, 2002 

Published September 12th, 2002 

Recently the question was asked what rapper was the best actor. The answer? Ice Cube, and he deserves the accolade. Cube proved he had something with his debut in Boyz In The Hood. But it was Friday that showed Ice Cube was going to be around for a while. Now with Barbershop, Cube may finally shake the rapper actor label altogether and just be seen as an actor.

In Barbershop, Cube is Calvin, owner of a Chicago barbershop once owned by his grandfather and his father. Calvin, however, isn't satisfied running the family business, he would like to run his own record company from his basement. As the day unfolds Calvin decides to sell the shop to a local hustler played by Keith David. 

Meanwhile we get to know Calvin's employees. There is the grizzled vet Eddie (Cedric The Entertainer), the college kid Jimmy (Sean Patrick Thomas), African immigrant Dinka (Leonard Howze), former gangbanger Ricky (Michael Early), the lone white guy Isaac (Troy Garity) and the girl Terri (EVE). Each has their own problems, Ricky is a two time felon who if he gets in trouble again will spend the rest of his life in jail. 

His trouble is compounded by his no good cousin JD (Anthony Anderson) who uses Ricky's truck to steal a newly installed ATM machine from a market just down the street from the barbershop. Terri has a no-good boyfriend who she can't seem to shake, while Dinka is nursing a serious crush on her. Isaac, because he's white, can't get any customers, and is feuding with Jimmy who thinks he knows everything because he went to college. Then there is Eddie. Eddie is the ringleader, he begins the conversations and says everything on his mind no matter what anyone thinks. As Eddie, Cedric The Entertainer delivers the film's funniest performance.

For me though the movie was about Ice Cube. As we watch Barbershop we watch as Ice Cube the actor becomes more mature and relaxed. Cube is in command playing an older wiser character, a guy with dreams that have passed him by who is just now seeing what is real and important. The character of Calvin holds the movie together while observing it from the outside. Calvin is hardly ever involved in the barbershop conversations but he is always watching and his perspective is the audience's perspective. As he realizes how important his shop is to the neighborhood, we in the audience do as well. It is a marvelous performance.

Barbershop does have its flaws, particularly Anthony Anderson as JD. Anderson is becoming a cliché, playing the same character over and over. In Barbershop his constant mugging is tiresome and unnecessary. The film could have done without his entire subplot. Still, Barbershop is a very good movie. For me the most important thing in comedy is consistency. Most films take too long setting up jokes that aren't funny enough to justify the time taken to set them up. In Barbershop, laughs come early and often, making for one of the funniest movies of 2002.