Apolitical tract disguised as a romantic comedy, this grimly humorless, philosophically jejune, unpleasant movie written by Callie Khouri, writer of Thelma & Louise, prates about how funny it is to see a man (a) kneed in the crotch; (b) poisoned by his estranged wife; (c) throw up repeatedly; (d) get locked out of his house (this notion is thought so hilarious, it gets used twice); (e) suffer because his wife uses their young daughter as a weapon against him.
The film, directed by the Swedish Lasse Hallstrom, is apparently set in Kentucky or Tennessee, where Roberts, daughter of thoroughbred breeder Duvall, sees her husband, Quaid, kiss another woman on the street.
Roberts takes an uncompromising approach to this revelation. While it is her single sister Sedgwick who knees Quaid, Roberts throws him out, subtly bad-mouths him to their daughter Haley Aull and poisons his food when he comes home for a (he thinks) conciliatory dinner, using a "recipe" from her dotty aunt, whose homicidal impulses are portrayed here as merely mischievous.
Meanwhile, Roberts and Sedgwick's parents, Duvall and Rowlands, are struggling belatedly to sort out their marriage too. Rowlands, inspired by her assertive daughters, throws out the formerly unfaithful Duvall (whereupon he starts walking around forlornly, mewling piteously—a most unlikely turn of events that even the redoubtable Duvall can't make plausible).
Khouri, gaining zero yardage in the battle against infidelity, seems mostly intent on proving how articulate she is by using the barnyard epithet "s—t" as often as possible: It appears in 11 different lines, not counting the variation "shoot." Roberts is also saddled with any number of other four-letter words, and she belabors the pointless modifier "god-damned." As for storyline, there is also a totally predictable subplot wherein Aull and Duvall ride prize horses owned by the family in a big dressage event.
Aull, a 10-year-old South Carolinian, is a refreshing presence in this otherwise stale, sour film. Hallstrom shoots Roberts from unflattering angles that elongate her face and stress the size of her mouth. Yet she remains ingratiatingly lively as does Quaid, despite his thankless, underwritten role. Duvall and Rowlands, having outlived many silly scripts, will soldier on. (R)
Daniel Stern, Anthony Heald, Ann Dowd, Jon Polito
Nobody should be offended by this ensemble juvenile comedy. Nobody should become indignant at the waste of talent. Nobody should be too entertained either.
For one thing, Stern is a born second banana who makes a thin comedy lead in this movie, frequently resorting to crossing his eyes for comic effect.
Not that he has a lot to work with in a four-author script about a delivery-man, Stern, who is framed for murder by Heald, a crooked businessman. While running away, Stern is mistaken for a scout leader who is supposed to be taking a half-dozen scouts off on a camping trip in the mountains.
The kids are not the stereotypical melting-pot collection. There is no black youngster, and the chubby one isn't the butt of everyone's jokes; a token girl, Janna Michaels, seems included just to fill a roster spot, though Ari Greenberg, as the group's nerd, seems shoehorned in too.
The funniest character is Brad Sullivan, whose wizened, officious demeanor makes him an ideal small-town sheriff, judge or, in this case, the real scoutmaster whom Stern is impersonating. The humor runs to slapstick, such as Stern slamming into a mountain nose first or the boys urinating over the side of a mountain in an extended sequence. It's that kind of movie. (PG-13)
>EMPLOY ALL MONSTERS
WHEN WORD CAME FROM TOKYO Recently that Godzilla, king of monsters, would die at the end of his 22nd movie—not just sink beneath the waves with the usual tragic burp, but perish forever—the instinctive response was disbelief.
That, the Toho Company now makes clear, was the right response. According to Kenichi Hayakawa, a publicist for the movie studio, Godzilla does indeed pass on after stomping around Hong Kong in Godzilla vs. Destroyer, due in Japanese theaters at the end of the year. But Godzilla will return...somehow. "The current series had Godzilla versus somebody," explains Hayakawa. "We're going to stop that confrontational style." One thing isn't changing: Godzilla, a supposed 260 feet tall and a crushing 50,000 tons, will still look like a rampaging sofa. "It's just a guy in a latex suit," says Hank Saperstein, whose UPA Productions handles the bulk of Godzilla's U.S. franchise.
Oh, but that latex suit can be a strait-jacket! The Godzilla movies, which generally cost $8 million, still perform well in Japan, but the big guy flopped when he last appeared on screens here, in Godzilla 1985. And Toho execs are well aware that 1993's Jurassic Park, with its computer-animated thunder lizards, is the most successful movie ever. Three years ago, Toho sold TriStar the rights to produce an American Godzilla with modern special effects. TriStar, says Saperstein, is now trying to figure out how to trim the budget to $80 million. "After Waterworld," he says, "people were scared." But that's a whole different Hollywood monster.
- Contributors:
- Ralph Novak.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
