THE BOUNTY HUNTER is a tedious slog through tidy coincidences starting with the premise. A divorced couple meet again when she, a crack reporter on the trail of a bombshell story, jumps bail and he, the eponymous bounty hunter, is tasked with bringing her in. That’s about 15 minutes worth of good story line. Twenty… Read More »
JUST GO WITH IT
Evincing a sense of humor that would be the envy of a first-grader, Adam Sandler once again assaults the concept of humor in JUST GO WITH IT. Predictable is perhaps the least of the faults to be found here, combined as that is with a fixation on excretion, and with tedious direction from Sandler regular… Read More »
ROCK STAR
Mark Wahlberg looks yummy in tight leather pants and thats a good thing because theres not much else to recommend his latest flick, ROCK STAR. Its the standard tale of the dangers of getting what you wish for, of the hollowness of a life of too much sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Fortunately, he… Read More »
DERAILED
Clive Owen is an actor of enormous charisma, a tough vulnerability, and a not inconsiderable amount of animal magnetism, none of which are on display in DERAILED, a ridiculously overplotted and underthought exercise in muddled filmmaking. Blame director Mikael Hafstrom for quashing Owen’s appeal along with everything else that threatens to light up his film.… Read More »
RUMOR HAS IT
RUMOR HAS IT, a dreary pseudo-sequel to 1968’s THE GRADUATE, tacks uncertainly between the far-fetched and the cliché as it hedges its bets rather than sharpens its claws with a story that dishonors the memory of that iconic classic. The action picks up in 1997 when Sarah (Jennifer Anniston) flies home from New York for… Read More »
THE SWITCH
THE SWITCH, based on the short story Baster by Jeffrey Eugenides, is a quiet comedy that is also an introspective mood piece about Wally (Jason Bateman) an inadvertently funny, introspective and somewhat moody man. Speaking to a particular pocket of time, the first decade of the 21st century, and a particular place, New York City,… Read More »
BRUCE ALMIGHTY
Jim Carrey wants it both ways. He wants to be the heir apparent to The Three Stooges, but he also wants to tug at our heartstrings. Until now, hes divided those aspirations between films, the silliness of ME, MYSELF, AND IRENE and the carefully calibrated corn of THE MAJESTIC. Perhaps sensing that his audience has… Read More »