Operation: Endgame - 30th November 2010
Yet, despite almost everyone in the cast, except Rob Corddry, being somewhat underused it is a brave mix of movie genres that doesn't fit into any one box and therefor doesn't completely work. 10 out of 10 for sheer bloody effort though.
It had three things I like in a film though, comedy, a surprising amount of gore and some good violent action. Which is funny because I didn't expect it to have any of that in it at all.
Basically it is about an underground (literally) secret society, comprised of two teams of spies and assassins, that maintain the balance of power in The States by one side orchestrating ludicrous schemes and the other side covering it up. In the film, their leader, Jeffrey Tambor in a funny and weird cameo gets killed and the murderer triggers Operation: Endgame which basically gives the facility 90 minutes before it blows up and everyone in is killed. This basically means you have two groups of comedians playing sociopathic screw up assassins mistrusting and attacking each other while the clock ticks away and clues as to an exit are hunted for. It's a nice bonkers set up that allows this fairly low budget film to shoot basically in all one location and keep attention from the audience by using hilariously offensive jokes and fairly graphic and gory violence.
The first fifteen minutes during the protracted set-up to this, video-game alike, showdown plot, I found genuinely as hilarious as anything I have seen of late and some of the quips, jokes and verbal humour is by far funnier, to me, and just pleasingly weirder than a lot of mainstream comedies, also, Rob Corddry is funnier in this than he has been in almost anything he's done.
That's about it though, once the first fifteen minutes are up and Jeffrey Tambor has been offed the film looses a lot of it's quick paced humour in a dramatic tonal shift and replaces it with out and out killing. Which is great if you find horror/action comedies funny but probably made a lot of people going in, thinking this was some sort of Casino Royale (the comedy film from the 60s) for the 2010s, turn against it and hate it so much (because this is not the best rated or reviewed film the world has ever seen, as I am sure comes as no surprise as it went straight to DVD in the State and you are probably all sitting there going "eh? Operation what?").
I thought, no, I liked the opening, I am sticking with this, going with it and embracing what is, essentially, Laurel and Hardy with gaping head wounds. It does loose steam rapidly though, I am sad to say, as the famous and funny people get killed in favour of two nobodies who are obviously the only two actors that did more than three days on the movie; Not that they are the worst actors or anything, just that the comedy dries up, the whole thing gets confusing, they try and come up with some political, twist wrap up ending that ultimately leaves you not caring and a little disappointed that the level of genius quipping and entertaining bloody fisticuffs you had come to enjoy aren't really sustained throughout.
Also, a devise in which two bickering doormen essentially, with a big screen, who watch and comment on the action unfurling in the bunker beneath them ceases to be funny around about the half way point and a sub plot about Jeffrey Tambor's character's phone sex with an unknown spy is annoyingly distracting, desperately unfunny, ultimately obvious and adds nothing whatsoever to the proceedings.
The shifts in pace, plot and tone are not handled smoothly enough either and with one more comedy punch-up re-write this could've been a horror/action comedy destined to become a cult favourite, which is surely what it looked like on paper but unfortunately, while I would happily show the first few minutes to anyone and say "look how genius this could've been, it's hysterical!" I could not stick it in the pile with Re-Animator or Evil Dead 2.
Still at least these first time trio of two writers and a director tried to write something fairly original with a genuinely edgy sense of absurd humour and did it well enough to lure some likable people into small but watchable roles and I will never complain about that.
6 out of 10 sips of whiskey out of a gun shaped glass
The Hangover - 26th November 2010
The Hangover is the, I-wonder-why-they-haven't-really-made-a-move-like-this-since-Bachelor-Party-it-seems-so-bleedin'-obvious!, lads go to Vegas and destroy everything film that is fairly funny and watchable if the above idea appeals to you in any way.
Zach Galifanakis is the stand out star because, quite literally, without his character in the film and if his character doesn't work then there isn't a film, Ed Helms is fine but a little one note and Bradley Cooper finally feels well cast in something after starring in absolutely every single film in the last two years.
A quick note about Heather Graham. In this she is reduced to playing a ridiculously stereotypical, unfunny and, quite frankly, boring stripper character, that's basically a cameo, and that may first come as a surprise, considering she was a name before any of the 3 'stars' of the film but you soon see why when it's glaringly apparent that she can't even act that right! She really is truly awful, I know she was never a huge star but this is ridiculously poor.
The first part of the film while they are setting up the premise, Zach G is the best thing in it because of his ability to say something completely ludicrous with a straight face whilst coming across as unhinged but harmless and the verbal comedy is my favourite bit, personally.
Once they wake up the next morning hungover and with a 'Fear and Loathing' amount of debris in their hotel room they start to put the pieces of the previous night back together and what follows are a series of revelations and high slapstick set pieces. Which are completely fine to begin with, the police station and the hospital scenes being the best as they are A) the most verbal B) the funniest and C) genuinely feel like they are putting a puzzle back into place, the whole Mike Tyson's tiger thing is a mildly funny diversion too but the sub plot with the baby, the stripper and the "hilarious" yet completely impossible wedding (you need a marriage license, even in Vegas you can't just waltz in drunk and marry anybody!) is predictable, cliche and fairly dull and the whole build up to the end with an Asian mob boss, that the film makers seem to feel is a lot funnier than he actually is, goes absolutely nowhere!
At a certain point the whole plot of the thing falls apart which leaves the ultimate reveal, of where the groom has been left, feeling underwhelming and the characters too, once clearly defined and funny are sanded down until, by the end, they are all just as good but as screwed up as each other, even Bradley Cooper's character who apparently hates his life at the beginning greets his wife with a big hug and a kiss at the end. It also feels like a completely wasted comical opportunity when the Ed Helms character finally breaks up with his nagging, controlling and downright horrible girlfriend because while it is, again, mildly hilarious, the potential was there, in better hands, for an absolutely hysterical ending.
So, while it may sound that I am knocking it, it is a perfectly acceptable comedy film, featuring just about everything you'd expect and a whole handful of stuff you wouldn't from a lads trash Vegas movie. Everyone but Miss Graham does their part perfectly well and it has a nice wrap up but none of it bares much scrutiny, has any hint of realism and isn't as funny as it could've been.
5.5 out of 10 big wobbly jellies that look a bit like breasts 'chuckle smirk'
Points from the Wife - 5 out of 10 Margarita's by the pool while the men piss about
Due Date - 8th November 2010
I was going to say that with Downey Jr's recent reform and rise to superstardom we have sadly lost some of Downey Jr the actor because, unfortunately, with his exposure we have all got used to his rapid fire Downeyisms and wrongly assume he just plays Donwey Jr every time but that is simply not the case. It is true to say that he is not exactly stretching with his recent roles, all of them are clever smart arses with a soft side and a dollop of eccentricity but if you were to watch Iron Man, Sherlock Holmes and Due Date side by side you'd see three very different people on the screen. He really has that rare talent of subtlety where you know they are all Robert Downey Jr but when you think again and look back then whole worlds have been created within subtle character quirks, different in each performance. He is the solid semi-straightman in this film and the butt of Galifianakis' whirl wind of mishap and mayhem but has a temper to the point where you never really side with him. If it was a Larry David type then you'd side with him, you'd think, oh poor man what a terrible day he's having but Downey Jr's character doesn't start to get our sympathies till the second half of the movie where, after a mind bogglingly ludicrous series of events, it makes you stop and wonder how this character is even alive. Thinking about it, his role in the film bares a little similarity with the old John Cleese comedy Clockwise in which a tightly wound, prompt school headmaster trying to get somewhere quickly befalls indignity upon indignity, which I can see the comedy in for a while but soon you just want something to go right for the poor bastard. Luckily because the one liners in Due Date, from Zach Galifiankis' character, are so very clever, quick and funny and generally you are really enjoying his performance that the feeling that enough is enough didn't really start to creep in until the last third.
If your only exposure to Mr.Galifianakis is The Hangover then please YouTube him now or go on Funny or Die and swot up because he is really really funny and not just the next Jack Black/Chris Farley/John Candy knock off, despite the obvious comparisons. Obviously, in this role, he channels a little of John Candy in the fact that despite being a colossal annoyance he appears so happy, naive and wide-eyed that you're initially glad that he's along with the ride, in later scenes there's also something of the creepy, Jim Carrey Cable Guy about him but it's all played for laughs. John Candy's genius though, in Planes Trains and Automobiles and other films, was to play those sorts of well meaning but ultimately painfully irritating characters without ever having to resort to any real gross out humour or anything genuinely dangerous. In Due Date, however, as it's 2010, we have to have stoner jokes, masturbation jokes, death defying car crashes and vomiting, they also manage, through various, continuous misadventures to raise the level of farce in this film to catastrophically unbelievable heights.
It depends on your taste, if more is funnier then you'll love all this stuff but for me it went a little too far and if it had been anyone else in the roles I wouldn't have stuck with it. The two actors are just so good, though and the script, when it's just two guys talking, is terrific that you forgive it the ridiculous, larger than life excesses. It's also true to say though that it is its gross out, over-the-top, heightened reality nature that stops it from becoming a Planes Trains carbon copy.
To give Zach's character some depth to him they give him a dead Dad that he has a hard time letting go of and the purpose of the trip is to get to LA for the birth of a child so underneath all the crash, bang, wallop and puke there is a real story to be told, an unlikely friendship is made and there is some heart tucked in there without ever being really too schmaltzy.
All in all I did enjoy it, it felt a little long but the scenery is great, the back and forth between the two leads is terrific and funny throughout and although it did detract from the more subtle things that were going on, car chases featuring Zach Galifianakis are generally very amusing.
7 out of 10 tea and doughnuts
Points from The Wife 8 out of 10 coffees and doughnuts