Steve Carrell and Tina Fey are 2 of the most likable and funny people currently on network television in their NBC sitcoms The Office and 30 Rock respectively. That reputation hasn't changed in their transition to the big screen even if some of their previous choices of projects have faltered a bit. Pairing them up as a bored, and purposely boring, married couple from New Jersey who find themselves caught up in a wild and violent night from Hell in manic Manhattan isn't the most inspired concept in the world, but on the strength of their comic charm alone it's still very likable and funny.
After learning that a couple of their friends are splitting up (Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig in an all too brief appearance), Carrell decides to try to re-ignite the spark of their marriage by abandoning their routine date night plans and heading into the city for a meal at a posh upscale restaurant that they don't have reservations for. A dolled-up Fey is hesitant at first, but is soon game - same goes for when Carrell, not able to get a table, steals somebody else's reservations which, of course, leads to a case of mistaken identity with gunshots and frantic chases galore.
The MacGuffin here is a flashdrive, or "computer sticky thingie" as Fey calls it, that 2 thugs (Jimmi Simpson and Common) insist Carrell and Fey possess. Our not quite heroic duo elude their pursuers, find out that the thugs are cops on the take, and call upon one of Fey's real estate clients, a shirtless Mark Wahlberg, for help. It really doesn't matter where the plot goes from here - it's just an excuse for Carrell and Fey to run around and spout out one-liners, many of which are just funny enough to keep the enterprise rolling.
Cameos from James Franco and Mila Kunis as a trashy couple who amusingly share some of the same relationship issues as do our protagonists work better than they should, and Ray Liotta as an angry mobster (once again resurrecting Henry Hill from GOODFELLAS) also adds nicely to the mayhem, as contrived as it is. It's as predictable as its fabricated THE OUT OF TOWNERS meets AFTER HOURS formula would suggest, but if you like Carrell and Fey (I can't imagine somebody liking one and not liking the other) you'll most likely like this.
In her eulogy for her late ex-husband Sonny Bono, Cher said: "He wanted to make people laugh so much that he had the confidence to be the butt of the joke...because he created the joke." The same could be said of Ricky Gervais. This was amusingly the case with his brilliant BBC TV programs The Office and Extras, so it's no surprise that his directorial debut is filled with self deprecation as well as outright cheap shot insults aimed at Gervais written by Gervais (well, and co-writer Matthew Robinson).
Here Gervais has a simple but juicy scenario - there's an alternate world, much like ours except that there is no dishonesty. Everybody tells the truth all the time, sometimes in blunt crude remarks, until one fateful day when a "chubby little loser" (Gervais's voice-over narration's words - not mine) discovers that if he says something that isn't true everybody believes him.
He can get money from the bank by lying about his account or by swindling a casino, he can get a woman to have sex with him by telling her the world will come to an end if she doesn't comply, he can get a drunk friend (Louis C.K.) out of a DUI by telling the arresting officer that his friend isn't intoxicated, he can...well, you get the idea.
One thing he can't lie about is his appearance and genetics which puts a roadblock between him and the woman he loves - Jennifer Garner. She feels that if she marries and procreates with him their offspring will be "chubby kids with snub noses." An "ouch" in a sea of ouches for our schlubby hero.
Overheard telling his mother (Fionnula Flanagan) on her deathbed that she will be rewarded a mansion and endless treasures in the afterlife, Gervais unintentionally invents religion too. Hoards of desperate folks appear at his doorstep to get answers from him and he tells them of a "Man in the sky" who will reward or punish them after they die for how they live their lives.
Gervais's take on all this is whimsical and sweet, with light laughs instead of guffaws. It's a premise out of a comedy Twilight Zone but its tone is subtle and thoughtful instead of outrageous or at all subversive. It helps that Gervais has an ace cast including Rob Lowe as a rival both in business and in love, Jonah Hill as a suicidal neighbor, Tina Fey as his smarmy secretary, and Jeffrey Tambor as his nervous boss. Also keep an eye out for a bevy of cameos which I won't spoil - okay, I'll spoil 2: Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a kindly bartender and Edward Norton as the previously mentioned arresting officer.
THE INVENTION OF LYING may be too light, or worse, too slight to make much of a comic impression but it's chock full of charm and just funny enough to recommend. For a first time director it shows a lot of promise, and for an up and coming comedy star it shows a lot of growth. With this as a foundation, Gervais will certainly go on to create bigger better joke fests that he undoubtedly will again be the butt of again. Cheers to that.
A David Mamet Martial arts movie, well, how about that! Actually, since Mamet’s films usually offer double-talking con artists scoring a scam, the seedy world of strong armed prize-competitions is a perfect fit. Chiwetel Ejiofor, working his worry-lines particularly this one popping vein on his forehead, is a jujitsu master and self defense instructor who lives by a moral code and has perfected a new strategy. Which is, to determine the fight, Ejiofor explains with three marbles: “Each fighter has a two-in-three odds of chosing a white marble. White marble's a pass” and that the “black marble is a handicap” meaning the fighter loses the use of his arms. He considers this his training method trademark despite its historical precedent and it is grifted from him by the business that is show - a movie star (a gruff thick Tim Allen) and his film production cronies and a big league televised championship. Other pressures mount with his nagging wife (Alice Braca) bitchin’‘bout huge debts, a frazzled lawyer (Emily Mortimer) who accidentely shoots out the window of Ejiofor’s studio with a cop’s gun, a hot wrist-watch that competes with the marble method to be the film’s meta-MacGuffin. “There is always an escape” Ejiofor often states though it gets so dicey you doubt whether he believes it.
Mamet’s trusty regulars Joe Montegna, Ricky Jay (stiffer than usual but still effective), and Rebecca Pidgeon (Mamet’s wife) all do their wicked best with the barbed wordings while curiously crafted fight choreography marks the set pieces. Along with the surpisingly deft Tim Allen (atoning for WILD HOGS I hope) the always affable David Paymer has a brief bit as a loan shark and look for Jennifer Grey (DIRTY DANCING) in a nothing part as Montegna’s lady-friend. Ejiofor is the one to watch though; he carries every scene with a gravitas only hinted at in previous works like DIRTY PRETTY THINGS and AMERICAN GANGSTER. His sparring both with his fellow thespians in tense talks and in the ring is engrossing. REDBELT isn’t Mamet’s best film (that’s GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS IMHO) but it is meticulous and gloriously manipulative in many pleasurable ways. It's a thinking man’s Martial arts movie that, for all the abrasiveness of its characters plans, has a careful respectful grace that so much modern drama is missing.
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And then there’s that little known third category”. - Al Gore
This HBO telefilm tells an all too familliar tale - the maddening election result fiasco that was the Bush/Gore Presidential campaign of 2000. No need to worry about any Spoilers here - everyone knows how this turned out but what makes this compelling and essential is the devil in the details. A solid cast staffs both sides of the debate - Kevin Spacey, Dennis Leary, and Ed Begley Jr. in the Democratic corner facing off Tom Wilkinson, Bob Babalan, and Bruce McGill as the rebuking Republicans. Laura Dern as Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris is the icing on an already very tast cake. As Warren Christopher, John Hurt makes a much more striking note (described by Leary as “so tight he probably eats his M&Ms with a knife and fork”) than he did in the whole of that last Indiana Jones flick.
The real star here is the story though - biased towards the Democrats as one would figure and fudging with some minor facts aside, the topsy turvy twists of the road to the White House turned me inside-out with some of the same feelings I had when the real thing was happening getting stirred up. I got so into the frustrating back and forth that I thought it was again possible for Gore to win only to have to take a big bite of a stale reality sandwich. Sigh. Except for archival footage and some over the shoulder shots we never see Gore or Bush, we just hear their voices on phones or see doubles at a distance and this was a good decision. The meat of the matter was those toiling beneath them epitomized by Spacey’s part as Gore's former Chief Of Staff. Klain was actually fired from his position but still came to work on the campaign and then the recount commitee. Spacey brings his usual slick glide to the role which can be annoying in films like BEYOND THE SEA (actually everything was annoying in that movie) and THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE (ditto) but it works wonders with such lines as "the plural of ‘chad’ is ‘chad’?” Leary pretty much hammers down his standard schtick but his jaded cynical demeanor is definitely necessary considering.
Like many I’ve never really gotten over the 2000 election. It was one of the most disappointing and devastating events of my lifetime. That a lot of the mitigating factors haven’t completely been resolved is very troubling in light of the upcoming election. There’s a lot to recommend about RECOUNT but the most vital message it contains can be summed up by the words of poet George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. While I don’t think we’ll ever forget this story, I still fear it may be repeated.
Former SNL head writer and currently the star of 30 Rock (which she also created and writes) Tina Fey never appeared to aspire to motion picture leading lady status. “My role model is Harold Ramis” she told Time Magazine in an interview when promoting MEAN GIRLS. She went on: “I want to sneak into movies. I have no pretensions of thinking people will pay to see me”. Well, this was #1 at the box office its opening weekend (I know that doesn't necessarily mean hit - i.e. BANGKOK DANGEROUS) so plenty did pay to see her but I didn’t. Mainly because the lame looking clips on the commercials - I mean, did anyone bits like Fey getting mad at Amy Poehler for sticking gum under her prized coffee table were that funny? Well, nothing here is that funny. This is light comedy - a rom com that was marketed as a crude offensive Farrelly brothers type affair.
Fey is a 37 year old career woman who one day wakes up and wants a baby. She is told by a doctor (John Hodgman - the PC guy from those “get a Mac” ads) that the chances of her getting pregnant are “one in a million” so she looks into adoption but is discouraged by the long waiting list. The idea of employing a surrogate mother pulls her in and before long she is set up with Amy Poehler as a white trash loon. Poehler and Fey have worked together a lot so they have a great clashing chemistry but the tone here is too comfortable to really take off. It does contain a good cast with appearances by SNL folk (Will Forte, Fred Armisen, Siobhan Fallon), a mildly amusing performance by Steve Martin as Fey's pony-tailed new agey boss, Sigourney Weaver being a good sport about aging jokes as the surrogacy firm head who boasts about conceiving naturally, and Greg Kinnear as a smarmy but charming possible love interest for Fey.
The problem is that it's all too light and trivial. Poehler could have really gone somewhere with her crusty character, there are hints of that when she's going into labor and freaking out in a hospital hallway: “It feels like I’m shitting a knife!” but director/writer McCullers (also a former SNL alumni) seems to have decided to play one tone and never vere far from its self imposed sentiment. Still, Fey and Poehler have their moments and it’s nice to see a quasi-smart comedy involving the needs of women protagonists thats not trying to fake sincerity. Its small success will, with hope, give them the chance to try for something that has more teeth and will really leave more of a mark than this.
