The new Russo brothers breakthrough feature film production will not light up the sky with its tried and true elevator music humor but it will definitely light up a few shopping mall multiplexes. And that’s a good start.
Owen Wilson plays the wild and crazy guy who comes to live with the upwardly mobile Kate Hudson and Matt Dillon and turns their life upside down with skateboards, nudity, drinking and, yes, fire.
He is thrown out on his bicycle but through simple pure lovability comes back to pull his pal’s bacon out of the frying pan of his evil father-in-law. If you are looking for Greek tragedy here, or Shakespearean comedy, check out public TV, or something, anything, but avoid this film.
But if you are a dedicated slacker or want to become one with your children for a Saturday, you could do worse.
The PG-13 is real: fun stuff for the whole family if they don’t ask for much.
Anthony and Joe Russo made a tremendous mark with their smash hit Emmy Award winning TV comedy series "Arrested Development” a few years back but their first big hit on the silver screen is yet to come. They will have to make a few more movies like this one, and screenwriter Mike LeSieur will have to write a few more like this one, before their number comes up.
They are on the right track, but this flick will make it strictly with teenagers and Owen Wilson fans only.
That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of those types out there. Mr. Wilson, he of thrice broken nose and eminent natural attitude remains marginally funny on screen but with enough clams from his smash screenplays “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Rushmore” (both shared with Wes Anderson) to retire for life, should he so desire, with the nose of his choice.
He brings his childlike innocence to this film with some funny kid sequences involving nerdy baseball players and bicycle accidents. But the shtick about pulling the rain gutter off the roof and falling outside the window really took guts. Not on the part of the stunt double, but on the part of the writer and directors for having the chutzpah to include such a worn-out and hackneyed pratfall in anything resembling a full length feature film. In any event, if this was supposed to be Wilson’s breakthrough acting performance, it didn’t happen.
Nor did it happen for Oscar nominated Kate Hudson (Penny Lane in “Almost Famous”) or similarly nominated Matt Dillon (“Crash”) although the latter will get a big shot at the brass ring when the upcoming “Factotum” opens August 18, 2006.
There he gets to act the part he does best: the troubled young man on the road to perdition with really great hair.
Heck, it worked for James Dean.
If Dillon is no Jimmie D he has the same look and the same hurt as the late great Porsche jockey and, God willing, will live long enough to make good on the promise of some first rate serious acting.
His portrayal of the drunken Charles Bukowski is a step, or stagger, in the right direction. He is a real Dupree.
Kate Hudson plays, well, a young wife. She is torn and trauma’d by the goofy Dupree but gets through it in the end. Her part is indistinguishable from multitudes before it, completely unlike her fun “Almost Famous” role. One can only hope better things lie ahead.
When it comes to Michael Douglas playing the part of loutish father Mr. Thompson, a man obsessed with making his fortune big and son-in-law small, if you liked the legend in “Wall Street” or “Fatal Attraction” rent the DVDs and forget this film.
His part is as half-heartedly acted as it is written and is predictable from start to finish. Where is Willem Dafoe when you need him?
Mr. Douglas apparently lent a hand to the young cast and crew to give the effort a boost. Thanks to him for that.
All-in-all, safe enough fare to let the kids go alone---they won’t learn anything from this film they don‘t already know. And fun enough for a first date with little chance of offense taken.
Opens wide July 14, 2006 MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sexual content, brief nudity, crude humor, language and a drug reference.
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