Review: Movie 43

The year was 1991.  I had hopped on the train to Boston to enjoy a saturday with friends.  After a fine meal, we decided to see a movie at the Loews Copley Plaza (gone but not forgotten).  Someone insisted on seeing a movie I had never heard of called Drop Dead Fred and we all acquiesced.  I was basking in the glow of a perfect day away from school and thought nothing could ruin the moment.  Twenty minutes into the movie, I realized that I was horribly wrong.  There was one thing that could do just that…and I was now watching it.  As I walked out of the cinema some ninety minutes later I uttered these three words: “worst movie ever.”  In the two decades since, I may have echoed that sentiment a few times, but no movie has truly been able to seize that moniker from Drop Dead Fred.  All of that changed yesterday when I watched Movie 43, because it is indeed the “worst movie ever.”

Movie 43 is a collection of self-contained sketches directed by a collection of individuals featuring casts that are accomplished to varying degrees.  The comedic (and I use that word lightly) skits are tied together by a plotline featuring Dennis Quaid as a deranged screenwriter who desperately and forcibly pitches script ideas to a film executive (Greg Kinnear).  What ensues is a litany of asinine juvenile sketches that wouldn’t even be good enough for the SNL cutting room floor. 

Let’s cut to the chase.  Yes, it really is the worst movie I have ever seen and were it not for extreme boredom I probably would not have made it past the first twenty minutes.  However, what is most surprising about this movie is some of the names attached to it.  Some of that can be explained away by the fact that each actor’s awareness of the production was contained to their own respective sketches.  While that nugget absolves absolutely no one, it makes things a bit more palatable.   Peter Farrelly (There's Something About Mary, Kingpin) however has no such excuse as he championed this project from start to finish as a writer/producer/director.

So what makes it so bad?  The skit about an eligible bachelor with testicles on his neck (Hugh Jackman) would in most cases mark the low point for any film, but not in this one.  With sketches about coprophilia (Anna Faris), female menstruation (Chloe Grace Moretz), and rowdy birthday leprechauns, the film manages to reach new lows every time you think it could not possibly get any worse.  The experience of watching Movie 43 is best likened to following the real life exploits of Lindsay Lohan on TMZ.  It’s repulsive and disgusting yet demands attention because you just can’t help but wonder how far the once mighty can fall.  Rest assured, this film will plummet beneath whatever depths of idiocy you can fathom.

If I absolutely had to pick out a bright spot or two in the movie, I would single out real life couple Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts for their portrayal of a married couple who has opted to home school their son.  Likewise, Terrence Howard as the coach of an all black high basketball team stands slightly above the other sketches.  Sure, those two skits have moments where they pander to the lowest denominator in society, but there are also some genuinely funny punch lines that almost make you forget the shame and regret that mounts the longer you watch this movie.

To spend any more time discussing Movie 43 would be a disservice to myself and to the rest of humanity.  Before you clicked on this post, you were probably not inclined to watch this movie and hopefully, nothing I have written will in any way change your opinion.  There’s bad; then there’s terrible; and then there’s another level that you should completely avoid and this is one of those movies you should never watch…ever…under any circumstances.  In fact, should this DVD ever find its way into your life, you should treat it as you would the VHS tape from The Ring.  Break it; burn it; throw it in a well; whatever you need to do to make sure your eyes never see a single frame.  You’ve been warned.

Standout Performance: Everyone who passed on this movie.  

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Review: Goon

Goon made it onto 241 screens during its theatrical release and at first glance most people would say that was 241 too many.  We all know what a good sports comedy flick looks like – Slap Shot, Happy Gilmore, Wildcats – and for much of the film, this one resides on the opposite end of the spectrum from those movies.  The script is sophomoric; vulgar for the sake of being vulgar; and void of any real humor.  To say that it plays like one of those terrible direct-to-DVD American Pie sequels would be overly generous, and mainly because it appears that director Michael Dowse, and writers Jay Burachel and Evan Goldberg have no idea what kind of movie they are really trying to put together. 

The film - based on a true story - follows Seann William Scott’s Doug Glatt  - a simple man with a gift for fisticuffs, who finds his way onto a minor league hockey team as an enforcer.  The film chronicles his search for a purpose to life as it coincides with his team’s search for an identity.

So I say that the creative team behind this film has no idea what kind of film they are trying to put together, because it truly is an exercise in cinematic schizophrenia.  From one scene to the next, the movie seems to play like its living in a different genre as if the writers consciously decided to throw a bunch of garbage against the wall to see what would stick.  One moment it’s a guy flick flush with vulgar sexual references, and the next it’s a movie about familial dysfunction and disappointment.  Lest that not cover enough ground, a bit of romantic comedy comes into play before rounding out the project with a series of sports clichés.  To some this sounds great – like there is something for everyone, but if you can envision a buffet featuring watery spaghetti, crusted egg rolls, dry mashed potatoes, and something resembling meat loaf sitting beneath the drab yellow glare of heat lamps, then you are beginning to grasp how this movie plays.

In regards to the cast, this is clearly a case of the talent playing down to the level of the writing.  Seann William Scott has done an admirable job of forging a career out of his less-than-ten-lines-total appearance in American Pie.  It seems with each successive role since, he has gone more over-the-top than his original portrayal of Stiffler.  However, in Goon, he portrays a man of few words and the truth to be told, this film proves that the less the man speaks, the better his performance. As for Liev Schreiber, he plays legendary hockey enforcer Ross  Rhea who lurks in the background of the plot and like his character who is at the end of his career and thus demoted to the minors, Shcreiber has definitely seen better days.  As for the rest of the cast, Eugene Levy (American Pie), Jay Baruchel (She’s Out of My League), and Alison Pill (Midnight in Paris) clearly are in it for the paycheck and maybe to add a link onto their IMDB resumes, because it’s hard to figure out why else they would agree to appear in this movie.

To be fair, it’s not all bad.  The back end of the last act picks up a bit as the movie moves into full-on sports flick mode.  After all, who doesn’t like the part of a sports narrative when a team desperately tries to come together to defy the odds?  Now are those feel good moments enough to elevate this movie into the “watchable” category?  Sadly, no.  When ninety-percent of a movie is terrible, there are very few endings that can overcome that.  And if some perfect storm of an ending exists that can overcome such mediocrity, the cast and crew do not discover it in Goon.  They say that studios don’t make sports movies anymore because such projects do not attract audiences in the international market, which have become an increasingly bigger piece of the theatrical revenue pie.  But if they ever need to look for a second reason why sports movies are extinct, they probably need look no farther than the quality of a film like Goon.

Standout Performance: Me, for making it through this film.

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