Down but not out.
(2012) Drama (DreamWorks) Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Hall D’Addario, Michelle Pfeiffer, Olivia Wilde, Mark Duplass, Sara Mornell, Philip Baker Hall, Dean Chekvala, Barbara Eve Harris, David Burrus, Joseph Wise, Devin Brochu, Gabriela Milia, Abhi Sinha, Jon Favreau, Rob Brownstein, Christiann Castellanos, Pippa Hinchley. Directed by Alex Kurtzman
It is said that money changes everything. Sometimes for the better, in fact but there are in truth things more important than money. Family, for one thing – even family you never even knew you had.
Sam (Pine) is having a truly awful day. A truly gifted salesman, the deal which was to save his financial bacon has collapsed. His shenanigans and wheeler-dealer moves have brought a federal investigator turning a suspicious eye towards him. His job is essentially being taken from him. And he discovers that his father has passed away.
The latter is, as far as Sam is concerned, the least troubling of the lot. He and his dad have been estranged for years which has in turn kept Sam apart from his mother. When Sam deliberately misses a plane which would have gotten him home in time to make his dad’s funeral, his mother – knowing that the dick move was done on purpose – greets him with a slap to the face and an icy “the linens are in the upstairs closet.”
At lunch the next day with old family friend and lawyer Ike Rafferty (Hall), Sam discovers that his dad has left about $150,000 in an old shaving kit – but not for Sam. Instead, he’s supposed to give it to a bartender named Frankie who turns out to be a hottie who looks a lot like Elizabeth Banks. Not knowing who she is or what her relationship to his father was, Sam supposes that she was some floozy that dear old dad cheated on his mother with. Sam couldn’t be more wrong about that and therein lies the crux of the film’s drama, which is spoiled in the movie’s trailer.
If ever there was a film that was ineptly marketed, it’s this one. Despite being from the Kurtzman/Orci team that had been responsible for writing some of the biggest movies in Hollywood over the previous five years (a collaboration which has since split up), the studios completely botched the directorial debut of Kurtzman starting with the forgettable title for the movie and running through the marketing that gives away the film’s central plot twist.
Pine and Banks try gamely here, and they are so naturally charismatic that they nearly pull it off. It doesn’t hurt that they are supported by Wilde, who has quietly become one of the most reliable actresses in Hollywood, and Pfeiffer who has been not just one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood but one of her ablest performers as well.
There are hints of incestuous feelings between at least two of the characters which is a bit off-putting, although it never becomes an overt issue so in that sense they don’t have the courage of their own convictions. Even more annoying, there is Frankie’s son Josh (D’Addario) who is wounded, extremely precocious and de rigueur for this kind of Hollywood production. Nothing against D’Addario but Josh really serves no useful purpose in the story and could have easily have been left off the script entirely.
As I said earlier, the movie’s marketing campaign was staggeringly unsuccessful; DreamWorks even chose to release it roughly during the same period as summer blockbusters like Magic Mike, Ted, Brave and The Amazing Spider-Man, leaving virtually no screens for People Like Us. As you can see from the box office numbers, it never resonated with the movie-going audience and hasn’t found one in home video either.
While I’ve delineated many of the movie’s faults, there still is a charm to it thanks mainly to the three leads, particularly Pfeiffer who brings a lot of dignity and pathos to her role as Sam’s mom and widow to a man who couldn’t have been easy to live with. However, be warned that this is a very flawed movie and that it is something like a bad-tempered Golden Retriever; hard to love but some may well find it worth the effort.
WHY RENT THIS: Pine and Banks are engaging leads. Pfeiffer dazzles.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Super-creepy incestuous references. Requisite precocious child that captivates leading man.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s a fair amount of cussing, some sensuality and brief drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Pfeiffer was extremely uncomfortable with a scene in which she slaps her son across the face, feeling that it would alienate her from the audience but despite her objections the scene remained in the film.
NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There is a gag reel and footage of Pine and Banks improvising with one another in an attempt to define the relationship between their characters.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $12.4M on a $16M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD/Blu-Ray rental), Amazon (rent/buy), Vudu (rent/buy), iTunes (rent/buy), Flixster (unavailable), Target Ticket (unavailable)
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Millionaire
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Wild Tales
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