RENO 911: MIAMI Review:
Reno 911 is no Wet Hot American Summer. But even if I am no forced to concede that the Reno 911 guys and girls are probably the lesser half of the late-great THE STATE, they still did a good job here of taking an intermittantly funny TV show and making it into a pretty damn hilarious movie. Reno 911 isn't going to make any all-time Best Lists, but it had me laughing from start to finish, and had some of the most blatantly over-the-top humor I've seen since Borat. This one, much to my delight, is not for the easily-offended.
Because Thomas Lennon and crew really take full advantage of having no TV censors, and go for the Hard R here. The humor is lude, crude, profane, and hilariously so. It's going to be hard to watch the TV show now knowing that the actors can't go all-out like they could in the movie. Then again, these are some of the best comedy / improv performers out there. Thomas Lennon has been one of my favorites since I first saw him play a perverted lighthouse keeper on The State. Here, he totally transforms himself into Jim Dangle, one of the funniest characters on TV or film in the last few years. Just the visual gag of Dangle, sporting 70's-era mustache and John Stockton-style short-shorts is pretty consistently funny, but Lennon's deadpan, mock-serious delivery of his lines can just be flat-out hilarious.
Lennon is aided by a great supporting cast. While all of the regular Reno players are pretty good, my favorite has to be Kerri Kenney, who is seriously one of the funniest women I've ever seen. Her character on Reno is just totally insane, and gets some of the movie's biggest laughs.
The movie has a few great cameos as well, the best of which is probably from The Rock, who does a hilarious little bit of self-parody, a must-see for any fan of Dwayne "Rocky" Johnson. Paul Rudd and Patton Oswalt are a bit disappointing in their roles here though, unfortunately neither one is as good as they've been in other comedies, and most of their lines fall flat, especially Rudd's Scarface-like character, who is very gimmicky and never really quite works.
However, one of the big treats and disappointments of the movie is that every non-Reno 911 member of The State appears in a cameo role. It was awesome seeing the likes of Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, Ken Marino, et al appearing alongside Thomas Lennon et al ... the main problem is that these highly funny and talented guys were given little to do, so while it was cool to see them, they were barely used in the film. Kind of frustrating, as I said. A few other name comedians like Paul Reubens and Danny DeVito show up as well ... but really, no one outside of the principle Reno 911 players (excepting perhaps The Rock) is really used all that well.
Overall, this movie had a few jokes that bombed, no question. In fact, a few characters bombed completely (Patton Oswald, Paul Rudd). But in the end many of the jokes succeeded pretty spectacularly, and a few scenes were among the most hilariously memorable of any comedy I've seen in a while, up there with the best in some of my faves from the last several months like Borat, Tenacious D, Talladega, etc. While the plot is somewhat loosely constructed, it gives the offbeat officers of Reno 911 plenty of chances to shine, and lays the groundwork for plenty of laughs. Fans of the TV show will eat this up, and anyone else will probably at least get a kick out of it.
My Grade: B+
BREACH Review:
This movie is old-school through and through, with deliberate pacing, no fancy action, and cinematography that's about as straightforward as you can get. But that doesn't take away from a movie that really capitalizes on a tight script, very solid acting, and is a fascinating character study. Bottom line is: while it may not be the ideal Saturday night popcorn movie, Breach is a drama well worth checking out.
Basically, Breach tells the fact-based story of an FBI mole (Chris Cooper) who uses his standing as one of the Bureau's top information-analysts to feed sensitive intelligence to the Russians for years, operating just under the radar of the FBI, who finally catches onto him after years of fruitless efforts to find the mole. The question is - how to expose this guy in a way that is definitive and lawyer-proof? The answer lies in a setup - planting a young agent (Ryan Phillipe) in the mole's office, and having him covertly report on what goes on there, all while himself trying to evade suspicion.
More so than anything else, I found this to be a pretty fascinating character study of a company man gone bad. Chris Cooper does a fantastic job here, alternatively earning our sympathies as an unrecognized, spit-upon genius, and making us resent his bitter, destructive, intrusive personality. Cooper really owns this movie, and every second on screen he pulls you into the movie's admittedly slowly-paced plot just from sheer force of character.
The rest of the cast is decent, but operating on a slightly different plane than Cooper. While Cooper is treading Oscar-worthy territory, the rest of the cast turns in servicable-TV-movie-quality performances. I mean, I love Dennis Haysbert (President Palmer!), but his role is way too thin here to avoid simply thinking of him as That Guy From 24 and The Allstate Commercials. Similarly, it was hard to get over Gary Cole as a condescending buerocrat when he was basically playing a non-comedic version of his famous character from Office Space. Again, a great actor, but without much meat to his role, it was more a case of "look, it's Bill Lumbergh!"
As for Phillipe, he's been up and down with me depending on the movie. I was praying that this one wouldn't be a retread of the godawful Anti-Trust, and thankfully it was much, much better than that Razzie-worthy flick. Truth be told, Philipe was pretty good here. Not good "I wish he got Harvey Dent over Aaron Eckhart good," but he was well-suited for the role, and his slow, deliberate style was a good match for the movie's no-frills execution. Basically, Philipe is a long way away from being compared to young actors like DiCaprio and Damon, but he's pretty good nonetheless.
In sum, this was certainly an interesting movie with some fun dialogue and a very candid, non-glamorized version of the FBI. It actually reminded me a little of The X-Files in that it kept its hallways musty and poorly-lit, the walls bare save for the obligatory portrait of the Commander in Chief, the agents world-weary and lacking in their personal lives due to the rigors of their work (as a bonus for X-Philes, it even featured a small part played by Chris Owens, aka Jeffrey Spender). I liked how real this movie felt. It drew me in thanks to its authenticity. These felt like real people dealing with real issues, never all that larger than life, and that to me was a huge asset to the film and the story it was trying to tell.
So there you have it - it's not a slam-bag spectacular, not hyper-stylized, not particularly flashy. There are no huge twists or jaw-dropping revelations. In a way, it reminded me a bit of the Morgan Freeman movies Kiss The Girls and Along Came A Spider - that same gritty, old-school feel, nothing to distract from the minutiae of the plot, the characters. Some may get bored at this type of movie, but I enjoyed it. Solid stuff.
My Grade: B+
No comments:
Post a Comment