LITTLE FOCKERS
Here's a question. What's Barbra Streisand's worst movie? Or Dustin Hoffman's? Or Robert De Niro's? How about Harvey Keitel? It's a trick question. Here's a hint: it's just one movie. Another hint? It's a sequel and it's in theatres right now. Enough hints. It's "Little Fockers," the third in a series of movies about a male nurse named Greg Fokker (Ben Stiller) and his overly suspicious father-in-law (De Niro).
In this outing Greg, now moonlighting as a pharmaceutical salesman, must prove to Jack (De Niro) that he isn't fooling around on Pam (Teri Polo) and is worthy to be the patriarch or Godfocker of the whole family.
"Little Fockers" is an interesting study in what passes for a successful comedy franchise these days. Its producers must be hoping that familiar faces and situations will equal laughs and big box office. They're probably half right. The Fokker mix likely will garner big returns at the box office, but the laughs aren't there. Three movies in the ideas seem to have run out. Instead of the freshness of the first movie, we're treated warmed over jokes, innuendo, a series of misunderstandings and the only enema-flirtation scene to ever appear in a Streisand movie. There is the odd laugh and a few giggle worthy scenes but they are few and far between.
It's ram packed with big stars -- even if one of them, Harvey Keitel, seems to only be there to add some heft to the marquee -- but to be fair no one is doing their best work. Jessica Alba seems to be having fun playing a wild-child pharmaceutical rep but most of the other performances have a been-there-done-that feel, as if the movie was strung together from outtakes from the past Fokker films. We also seem to have reached the self parody stage of De Niro's career. Please Robert, if there is a fourth movie, no more Godfocker jokes!
"Little Fockers" is proof positive of the sequel law of diminishing returns.
1 ½ STARS
TRUE GRIT
The trailer for "True Grit," the Coen Brothers retooling of the John Wayne classic -- let's call it "New Grit" -- is atmospheric and dark, a feeling underscored by the choice of music, Johnny Cash's wonderfully stark "God's Gonna Cut You Down." It feels very much like "Unforgiven," Clint Eastwood's chilling study of morality in the old West, but don't be fooled. While it may share some of the themes with Eastwood's classic -- like retribution and honor -- it plays much differently.
In this adaptation of Charles Portis' novel "True Grit," spirited fourteen year old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) seeks revenge on Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the man who gunned down her father. When the local sheriff declines help she hires a gruff U.S. Marshall named Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track down and murder… er, capture Chaney. Preferably, for Mattie, the former. "I never shot anyone I didn't have to," he says, explaining his methods. Along for the ride is Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) who watches the growing relationship between his two manhunt trail mates and suggests that Cogburn has gone from "marauder to wet nurse."
"True Grit" feels like lesser Coen Brothers. Luckily lesser work from the Bros is still better than almost everything else, but despite the cast -- Jeff Bridges in his Oscar follow-up role, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin -- this isn't a classic. It is a simple story of reprisal but without the nuance you'd expect from the makers of "No Country for Old Men." It's an old fashioned action adventure film -- there's even some slapstick comedy! -- an entertaining one, but nonetheless, very little more than that.
Bridges is solid as the crotchety Cogburn, although he seems to have taken diction lessons from Keith Richards by way of Tom Waits. Damon is getting some early Oscar buzz but the performance to look out for belongs to Hailee Steinfeld. The almost unknown actress -- she just has a handful of credits on her IMDB listing -- is in almost every scene and redefines plucky. She delivers some very wordy dialogue -- apparently in the old west even marauders spoke like Victorians -- but beyond the technical aspect of the performance, is utterly believable as the headstrong girl who isn't afraid to throw her weight around to get what she wants. Charming.
"True Grit" is a western in the classic style, and will be suited to most members of the family (although I have a feeling that the Jeff Bridges movie most teenage boys are going to see this holiday season will be "Tron: Legacy"), it just isn't a classic.
3 ½ STARS
GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
We can blame Stephen Frears for the travesty that is "Gulliver's Travels." Frears didn't director or work on this big budget 3D adaptation of Jonathan Swift's satiric novel. In fact he might not have been within a hundred miles of the set, but ten years ago he cast Jack Black in "High Fidelity," a movie that showcased the actor's unhinged brand of humor and made him a star. Black had kicked around Hollywood previously, taking small roles in movies like "The Jackal" and "Enemy of the State," but Frears gave voice to Black's now trademarked manic enfant terrible act. Since then there's been good moments -- "School of Rock," "Kung Fu Panda" -- some bad moments -- "Envy" and "Year One" and now a downright ugly film -- "Gulliver's Travels."
Black plays Lemuel Gulliver, a ten year mail room veteran at a big publishing company with only one ambition -- to date Darcy (Amanda Peet) a pretty magazine travel editor. When he finally works up the courage to ask her out a misunderstanding leads to him being offered a travel writing assignment instead. Sent to the Bermuda Triangle, he gets sucked into a vortex and lands in Lilliput, a miniature kingdom under constant attack by a neighbouring nation. When Gulliver helps defend the diminutive country he becomes a hero to all except the scheming General Edward (Chris O'Dowd) who will stop at nothing to cut the giant down to size.
At one point during the action Jack Black cracks a joke and follows the punch line with, "Does that translate? Is that a joke here?" a question he probably should have asked after initially reading the script. The satiric tone of the novel has been surgically removed, replaced with "Star Wars" references, a lame musical number and Black's incessant mugging. I get that this has been reinvented with a young audience in mind, but dumbing down a classic novel like this just seems wrong. It's like watching "King Lear" interpreted by The Three Stooges with Larry, Curly and Moe as Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. It just doesn't fit. Perhaps a title change might have been in order. May I suggest "Gulliver's Twaddle"?
The problem doesn't lie completely with the script. It's terrible to be sure, but its Black's antics that really sink the movie. He dominates the movie, and not just because he is twenty times the size of his co-stars. Perhaps it's just that a little bit of his hyperactive slacker routine goes a long way or perhaps that we're weary of his overgrown kid shtick. What once seemed so fresh now seems tired and worse, not funny.
"Gulliver's Travels" suffers from some dodgy special effects, a dreary script and an over abundance of Black, and for that I blame Stephen Frears.
1 STAR
BARNEY'S VERSION
Barney's Version, based on Mordecai Richler's final novel, gives Paul Giamatti his most memorable part since Sideways. Utterly compelling as the kind of guy who calls his ex-wife's new husband with the offer of some nude pictures, "so you can see what she looked like in her prime," he glides -- or more rightly put, drunkenly stumbles -- through three wives, an accusation of murder and countless cigars toward a battle with Alzheimer's Disease. While the filmmaking occasionally veers into television movie territory Giamatti and cast -- Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike and Minnie Driver -- are by turns touching, caustic and hilarious but above all, entertaining.
3 ½ STARS
