Writer's Note: Happy birthday to lovely Cuban actress Ana De Armas, who turns 30 today! Here's a look back at the film that introduced me to her, Knock Knock. This review was first published on Facebook on March 20th, 2016.
Knock Knock marks writer/director Eli Roth’s first foray into the world of remakes, not counting the one of his own Cabin Fever he sanctioned recently- and a little too soon, IMHO- but didn’t direct himself. It’s based on the obscure late 70’s exploitation-thriller Death Game, aka The Seducers, which, like many of us when it comes to lesser-known old-school flicks, Roth came across on YouTube (which is also where I saw it, for that matter).
The original stars Seymour Cassel (best-known for his work with John Cassavettes, including The Killing of a Chinese Bookie; and Wes Anderson, including Rushmore), along with Sandra Locke and Coleen Camp, the latter two of which serve as executive producers on the remake as well. If those last two names sound familiar, then you probably grew up on or are well-versed in 70's-80's era cinema, as the ladies have cropped up in quite a few well-known films from that time period.
Locke is best-known for being in a long-term, oft-messy relationship with none other than superstar Clint Eastwood, who cast her in many of his films at the time, including the Dirty Harry vehicles The Gauntlet and Sudden Impact; The Outlaw Josey Wales, Bronco Billy, and the notorious “monkey” movies starring Clyde the Orangutan, Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can.
She’s also in some nifty indies like Willard (the original), A Reflection of Fear, The Second Coming of Suzanne, as well as the classic The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, for which she was Oscar-nominated, and she directed and starred in the oddball cult classic Ratboy.
Meanwhile, Camp started out in exploitation fare like The Swinging Cheerleaders (which I just love) and Ebony, Ivory & Jade (aka She Devils in Chains) before graduating to the big leagues in Game of Death, with the late, great Bruce Lee, and Apocalypse Now as a Playboy Bunny who runs afoul of the Vietnam War. Sadly, her part in the latter was cut out, but later turned up in the “Redux” cut.
Mere years after her role in Death Game, Camp would go, in typical Hollywood style, from the sexy siren to the mother of Deborah Foreman’s titular (and totally tubular) Valley Girl. From there on out, she went back and forth between higher-budgeted fare like Clue and Wayne’s World to the low-budget stuff she cut her teeth on in things like The Joy of Sex and The Rosebud Beach Hotel. She’s worked steadily to this day, most recently showing up in American Hustle and She’s Funny That Way, and has a cameo in Knock Knock, as well.
Knock Knock sticks pretty closely to the original, mostly only updating things to the modern era by including things like iPhones, iPads, Uber and social media like Facebook. Although Roth does tweak a few things here and there, notably the way the girls come into the protagonist’s life and the ending, which is all too abrupt and out of nowhere in that film.
In the original, the main character simply picks the girls up at a party and they come back to his place; here, they aggressively show up at his door and beg to be let in and things go from there.
In the Cassel role, we have, of all people, Keanu Reeves, in an atypical, but interesting type of role for him. Here, he plays a happily married family man that is fully domesticated and more than a little gun-shy when it comes to the ladies.
A bit taken aback by the two girls’ forward-thinking sexual attitudes and blunt talk, he keeps you guessing as to whether he will act on the girls’ advances or not, but if he didn’t, we wouldn’t have a movie, so…yeah, it’s not much of a spoiler to say that he does.
As with the original, he quickly comes to regret that choice the morning after, as it becomes all too clear that these two girls are not playing with a full deck. You’ve heard of Fatal Attraction? Try dealing with that, times two.
Essaying the crucial roles of the ladies are Ana De Armas and Roth’s real-life leading lady, wife Lorenza Izzo, who he met on the set of a movie he produced and co-wrote, Aftershock. Roth went on to cast her in his last movie, The Green Inferno, which this film also features a few vets from, including Ignacia Allamand as Reeves’ character’s wife, and Aaron Burns, as his wife’s agent.
Meanwhile, Izzo’s side-chick is played by the super-hot Ana de Armas, a real find, who also stars with Reeves in the upcoming Exposed and with Robert De Niro in the Roberto Duran boxing biopic Hands of Stone.
Izzo is the ringleader, who keeps the oft-off-the-rails Armas in line, insomuch as she can. It is intimated but never spelled out that both girls come from rough backgrounds, which involve some degree of abuse. (In the original, this is made much more explicit.)
As the girls get crazier and crazier, Reeves haplessly tries to control the situation, but it isn’t long before things get out of his hands and spiral into torture porn territory, though nowhere near to the extent of Roth’s own Hostel series.
Indeed, I’ve got to hand it to Roth, he actually reins in a lot of his worst tendencies here, down to the performances of his three main leads, which are actually less over-the-top than in the original film.
Yes, there is a scene in which Reeves has an exquisite flip-out, which will no doubt be quoted for years to come (“It was FREE PIZZA!”), but trust me, it’s nowhere near as bonkers, performance-wise, as what we see from Locke and Camp in the original.
To give you a frame of reference, I’m guessing Rob Zombie based the “Baby” character in House of 1000 Corpses on the Camp character in Death Game, so if you found Sheri Moon annoying in that film, you ain’t seen nothing yet because over-the-top doesn’t begin to cover it.
Instead, in Knock Knock, Roth carefully modulates his three leads’ performances, giving each a chance to shine here and there, before going for broke at key moments, to great effect.
The ending is also much more satisfying here, though, as evidenced in the deleted scenes, it could have gone darker. Personally, though, I think Roth made the right choice in going for something more in the dark comedy vein.
The end result is sort of like Hard Candy lite- maybe not as gratuitously satisfying as some of Roth’s earlier, more go-for-broke work, but quite possibly a step in a new direction that could be good for him, and even better for his many vocal critics. Like the aforementioned Zombie, Roth could actually benefit from learning how to take his time and not go from 0-100 and rarely anything in-between.
Put another way, sometimes it’s the quiet moments that make a film, not the action-oriented ones. Here, it’s the docile family scenes that open the film, as contrasted with the wall-of-shame, destruction-crawl that closes it, as we see the full extent of the girls’ mayhem in full for the first time.
As amusing as Reeves’ freak-out is, and as much fun as it is to see the girls go nuts in full force, it’s the moments in between that made the film for me.
Be sure to also check out the making-of doc and the commentary, both of which feature Camp comparing and contrasting the original and the remake, as well as Roth being Roth, which I gather can be a good or a bad thing, depending on your feelings about him. I’d have to say I fall somewhere in the middle, but I’d be much more on his side if he made more stuff like this.
I never thought I’d use “subtle” in regards to a Roth film, but compared to his other output, it really is, and a step in the right direction, IMHO. It’s not perfect, but it’s worth a look, if this sounds like your cup of tea. Check it out- as well as the ace soundtrack!
When I first started "Flashback Friday" back at the University of Alabama (aka UAB), the idea was to introduce the collegiate masses to the world of cult and exploitation films. I started off with some well-known features, but my tenure was short-lived, as I graduated soon after, effectively nipping the mission in the bud. (Once you graduate, you're no longer able to work at the student newspaper/website.)
When I started my blog, I decided to resurrect the idea, also deciding early on, in order to keep things interesting for myself, to tackle some lesser-known flicks that even I hadn't seen. Keep in mind, I got into this sort of thing at an early age, and, with the help of pay-cable movie channels and video rental stores (where I would often rent 3-5 movies at a pop), I drilled through quite a bit of them.
As such, I had to rely on such tried-and-true sources as Michael Weldon's seminal Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film and Psychotronic Video Guide, Tim Lucas' Video Watchdog, and magazines like Fangoria, Gorezone and Rue Morgue, among others, as well as various websites, in order to find some flicks I hadn't seen.
As you might guess, this has led me to some iffy choices along the way, including Oliver Stone's wacky debut feature, Seizure, the obscure slasher Fatal Games, the TV-movie Calendar Girl Murders, and, most recently, The Centerfold Girls. However, none more so than this week's selection, Doris Wishman's A Night to Dismember.
As much as I love to see one of these films directed by a woman, whoo boy, was it hard to find something positive to say about this one. I'm not completely unfamiliar with Wishman's work, having seen a few of her films in the past, notably the silly Nude on the Moon (which is exactly what it sounds like), the John Waters fave Deadly Weapons (the weapons in question are big old boobs, lol), and the immortal Bad Girls Go to Hell, which I loved.
One of Wishman's final films, it was actually shot in the late 70's, but, according to the director, a disgruntled lab employee destroyed most of the footage, so she was forced to re-shoot a lot of it over the stage of several years to fill in the blanks of what was lost, and add in a whole lot of narration to replace the audio tracks to boot.
As you might guess, this led to a decidedly haphazard film, filled with atrocious editing, horrible dubbing, and even sequences in which one actor is noticeably replaced by another within the course of a single scene!
If this sounds like something out of an Ed Wood film, rest assured, it totally is, which makes for a resulting film that is, by turns, laughable and hilariously bad on every conceivable
level. I mean, even by my decidedly low standards, this one is pretty bottom of the barrel.
Indeed, I found myself needing to pad out this review a bit because I couldn't even lean on the cast to help fill things out a bit as per usual, as most of them were only in this film, or, at best, appeared in some of Wishman's other work, with one major notable exception.
Just another day on the job for actress Alexandria
That said, actress Alexandria (no last name given, like Madonna or Cher), who plays Nancy, has a fascinating background, which you can read more about here. In addition to being in various X-Rated movies, Alexandria also posed in men's magazines, including a spread in High Society entitled "Sex in the Psycho Ward" and another in Puritan alongside no less than Nancy Spungen, of Sid & Nancy fame!
Rob DeRosa, who plays Marty, has a few decent, if nondescript, credits to his name, including bit parts as homeless guys on White Collar and The Carrie Diaries, "Scarred Man" on Gotham, "Creep" on The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, a prison inmate on The Last O.G. and "Crazy Junkie" in the movie Ghost Team. Hey, it's a living.
Both Mary Lamay, who played Ann, and Larry Hunter, who played, um, Larry, were in the exploitation flick The Detention Girls, and Hunter was in quite a few other such films, none of which I've seen, with colorful titles like Olga's Dance Hall Girls, All Women are Bad, To Hex With Sex, Once Upon a Body, Love-In '72, Love Toy and The Young Nymphs. This was both of their last feature film.
That's about it, really. The big draw here, by far, is porn star Samantha Fox, not to be confused with the British pop star from the 80's, of "I Wanna Have Some Fun" and "Naughty Girls Need Love Too" fame- though, as you might guess from those song titles, not too far removed from her, either.
This Fox, however, is American, and went from being a professional dancer in NYC to appearing in adult films after being spotted by a porn producer on a local TV show. Things went swimmingly for a while, netting her several "Erotica" awards in the process, before porn's transition from film to video led to a premature ending to her career.
Silicon-enhanced bodies were all the rage at the time, circa the early 80's, and Fox refused to go there, so she instead decided to go legit, landing a few roles- often under the name of Stasia or Stacia Micula- in exploitation flicks like Sex Appeal, Warrior Queen (with exploitation fave Sybil Danning and Donald Pleasence) and Slammer Girls, all of which were directed by Chuck Vincent, himself a former porn star.
Fox was also in the gangster flick Violated and the somewhat star-studded Streetwalkin', featuring a young Melissa Leo (The Fighter), Khandi Alexander (C.S.I. Miami), Dale Midkiff (Pet Sematary), Leon (Cool Runnings), Antonio Fargas (Starsky & Hutch), Greg Germann (Ally McBeal), Annie Golden (Orange is the New Black) and Julie Newmar (the OG "Catwoman" from TV's Batman).
Fox plays the lead character, Vicki Kent, who is given to psychotic breaks from reality that led her to attack some local kids, leading to an extended stay in the nuthouse. Upon her release, the visions start up again, but are actually brought about by her own family, who inexplicably decide to gaslight her to drive her back to a mental institution for some reason.
This eventually leads to Vicki being accused of murders she didn't commit, and her death at the hands of a decidedly unconvincing detective, who becomes taken with Vicki and is given to peeping at her through the windows!
When he receives a frantic call that Vicki has gone nuts, he arrives to find her with a bloody axe, which she picked up in shock, before realizing she had been set up by her actually psychotic sister, who really did murder her entire family for no good reason.
Thinking Vicki to be responsible, the two tussle and Vicki lashes out at the detective to protect herself, but he wrests the axe away from her and kills her instead, only later realizing his mistake when the sister escapes. The film ends with his requesting viewers to call the precinct if they spot her!
As you might have guessed from that description, little about this film makes sense, from the rationale behind any given character's motivation, to even the extensive narration by the lead cop on the case, which runs the span of the entire film, and is given to spouting would-be hard-boiled detective styled nonsense, often describing events he couldn't possibly have seen. (I think the film tries to justify it by saying he read their diaries!)
And don't even get me started on the editing, which looks to have been done with a chainsaw, often repeating shots to imply things like an extended chase through the house or woods.
The sound effects are also ridiculous, including random orgasmic moans during a violent dream sequence (perhaps a nod to Fox's notorious former career?) and what is clearly someone barking like a dog rather than an actual dog!
The music, which seems to be of the public domain variety, a la the original Night of the Living Dead (but used far less effectively), often starts and stops abruptly out of nowhere, and is rarely suitable for what's going on in the given scene.
When I first got the band My Bloody Valentine's Loveless on cassette, I took it back because I thought I'd gotten a bad copy. It sounded like it'd been dropped in water and then dried out on top of a heated radiator too long afterwards. I found out later it was supposed to sound that way. The score here sounds like that, but unintentionally, often speeding up or slowing down, as if the editor hit the wrong button.
The one thing the film has going for it, aside from the admittedly cool title, is the gore effects, but even they are botched by the poor editing. Wait until you see the scenes in which someone slowly descends a real axe or knife or whatever into someone, making sure not to hurt the person in question- apparently the production couldn't afford fake ones- and then lops their head off or drives it into their necks without coming anywhere near them.
When I say they slowly do so, I don't mean the movie goes into slow-motion, either- I mean, you actually see someone slowly thrust a weapon at someone in real time because they don't want to make actual contact with them. Ironically, the film does use slow-motion at various points, so they could have easily sped up said shots to make them look more realistic, but... they didn't.
Honestly, the level of incompetence here is staggering. You'd think that this was Wishman's first feature, not one of her last. I get that she was fighting an uphill battle, what with all the lost footage and no real on-set audio to work with, but man, is this a train-wreck of epic proportions. Needless to say, the film never got a theatrical release, instead going straight-to-video.
You can watch the film here on YouTube, but for those who don't want to commit to the whole thing- which, in spite of the barely over an hour running time, seems endless- here's an extended trailer that features enough of the film for you to decide whether you want to make the full commitment. (Please note: the trailer may actually be better than the movie! It certainly makes more sense, moves quicker and features all the gore, that's for sure.)
Look, don't get me wrong- I love a good bad movie as much as the next cult film fan. But this one is absolutely the pits. Honestly, to call this Ed Wood level bad is an insult to Ed Wood. It's THAT bad.
Even Samantha Fox fans would do better to just cut to the chase and watch one of her porns. The production level is probably better, at least. And the writing. And the acting. And the music. And everything else.
I mean, I chuckled at the full-throttle ineptitude here and there, but on the whole, it adds up to about an hour-and-ten-minutes I'll never get back. I'll leave it to you to decide if you want to suffer the same fate. (Hint: Don't.) 😜😝
Writer's Note: In honor of actor- and fellow Alabamian- Channing Tatum, who turns 38 today, and co-star Jillian Bell's birthday (which was yesterday), here's a look back at their movie, 22 Jump Street.
This review was originally published in UAB's Kaleidoscope on June 14th, 2014.
When the original 21 Jump Street arrived in theaters, I wasn’t exactly pumped. I’d never seen the TV show, and the pairing of Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum didn’t exactly scream dream team.
As the head critic at my job, one of the pluses is that I don’t necessarily have to see every film that rolls down the pike, so long as I review at least one film a week, so I chose to let that one go.
Then, a funny thing happened. The film was a massive hit, and mainstream critics started weighing in, saying how it unexpectedly didn’t suck, and was, in fact, shockingly not bad.
I was still extremely dubious, but when certain friends of mine also signed off on the film, I finally succumbed to the hype and rented the film. Believe me, no one was more astonished than I was that 21 Jump Street proved to be surprisingly not terrible.
One of the bigger revelations of the film was the undeniable chemistry between the two decidedly unlikely leads, which worked like gangbusters- perhaps because it was so left-of-center.
Factor in a knowing script that all but winked at the audience, as if to say: “We know it’s ridiculous, too” and you had the recipe for a sleeper hit that caught most everyone off-guard, in the best of ways.
Though still a bit skeptical going in, I opted to give 22 Jump Street the benefit of the doubt this time around, having learned my lesson not to be one of those snooty critics that think they’re better than certain material the first time around. But would lightning strike twice, or would it be more of the same, only less funny?
Thankfully, the answer is both yes and no. Let me tell you what I mean. On the one hand, yes, 22 Jump Street is absolutely more of the same. I’m not going to deny that or claim otherwise.
On the other hand, like the Scream films before it, the movie knows exactly what it is, and it isn’t afraid to poke fun at the very notion of a sequel as a full-on cash-in on the success of the film before it.
Indeed, wait until you see the near-worth-the-price-of-admission-alone end credit sequence, which foreshadows potential sequels on down the line in hilarious fashion, down to the addition of sidekicks- in this case, a hot chick, played by Anna Faris- and the “contract dispute” entry, in which Hill is “replaced” by someone else similar, whose identity I won’t spoil here.
As with the first film, 22 Jump Street garners its fair share of laughs from this gambit of making fun of the fact that the very idea of a 21 Jump Street movie is ridiculous, much less a sequel to one. As Nick Offerman, as Deputy Chief Hardy, puts it: “Do the same thing.”
Only, this being a sequel, everything has to be bigger, more over the top. Therefore, the gang moves across the street, literally, to a church on “22 Jump Street”- hence the title- which is itself hilariously next door to an empty lot with a construction sign that reads: “23 Jump Street condominiums coming soon!”
The film goes from there, taking the boys out of high school and into college, where this time, the shoe is on the other foot. Whereas in the first film Tatum’s character was a bit of a loser and Hill the amusingly popular one, this time, it’s the other way around.
Tatum fits in like nobody’s business and Hill is forced to bond with the lowly art student crowd, reciting slam poetry at a local coffeehouse and the like. (Hill’s decidedly meta attempt at doing said poetry is one of the film’s funniest bits.)
Meanwhile, the two set about investigating the crime at hand, which involves a confusingly-titled drug known as “Why-Phy,” starting out as dubious “brothers” before eventually growing apart as a direct result of their conflicting personas and hanging with different crowds.
As you might imagine, this leads to some funny “bromance” moments, such as the scene in which the two inadvertently stumble into a therapy session with the college counselor, expressing their feelings about the situation in knowingly wry terms, a la a gay couple.
Throw in a great twist involving Hill’s love interest, well-cast and winningly played by former “Greek” star Amber Stevens; plus fun characters like the twosome’s next-door dorm neighbors, who are identical twins (The Lucas Brothers) and Stevens’ character’s snarky roommate ("Workaholic" Jillian Bell, stealing almost every scene she’s in) and you’ve got a recipe for a fun time at the movies, if this sort of thing even remotely appeals to you.
So, I won’t make the same mistake I did the first time around, and be dismissive of 22 Jump Street. It may not exactly reinvent the wheel, but it gets the job done just fine, and is actually better-than-expected. If you like the first one, you’ll definitely like this one, and if anything, I’d have to say this one is even better in its own way.
With the characters firmly established, we don’t waste time getting into things, and the film doesn’t even try to pretend to be anything other than what it is: the same thing it was the first time around, only even more calculatingly so, which is admittedly satisfying, all things considered.
I laughed a lot, and consistently, and that is really all you can hope for in a sequel. Yes, the film falls prey to the inexplicable trend of overlong comedies, but at least it delivers the comedic goods, so I don’t mind letting it slide on that count.
I’m going to give it a B+ and say that, next time around, assuming there is one- and that’s a safe assumption- I won’t be so hasty to be dismissive. Sometimes funny things come in unexpected packages, you know? Go figure.
Writer's Note: I had originally planned to do this one for Amber Heard's birthday... until I actually watched it, lol. It's not THAT bad, mind you, but I had a few complaints about "honoring" people's birthday's with sub-par, or some might say, not great movies, so I opted not to go there, as those people have a point.
Of course, part of the original MO of this blog was to re-post articles that no longer were available online, so I was looking for a reason to do so that made sense and birthdays are the most obvious, so there you go.
But I get the point the complainers were making, and it's a valid one, so from now on, I'll try to only post movies that are actually honorable, IMHO, to celebrate people's birthdays. Otherwise, I may just re-post things at random, because, why not? Gotta get 'em out there somehow.
I had high hopes for I Do... Until I Don't because I'm a big fan of actress-turned-writer/director Lake Bell, who made a wonderful, assured debut with the highly amusing In a World..., which revolved around the trade of voice-over work.
I love a movie that delves into something I've never seen dealt with in a movie before, and that one certainly fit the bill. I'd absolutely watch a documentary about voice-over work, so a fictionalized version of the same was the next best thing. Especially since it was, you know, a pretty good movie.
For her follow-up, Bell opted to tackle another topic you don't often see in a comedy- a screwball farce about divorce. Unfortunately, there's a reason for that, and it's kind of obvious- the subject matter doesn't lend itself to big laughs.
Witness, for instance, The War of the Roses. Not a bad movie, mind you, but not exactly a laugh riot, either. As a child of divorce myself, I found it more heartbreaking than funny.
This film isn't nearly as dark as that film, which was fully intended to be more of a black comedy than a straight-forward one. But nonetheless, it shows why more filmmakers haven't gone there in the past.
The plot revolves around a documentarian, Vivian (Dolly Wells, Doll & Em), who, still reeling from a break-up herself, who opts to prove her thesis that all marriages end around the seven-year mark these days, and that a couple should be given an "opt out" around then to end it, rather than dragging things out.
She chooses several couples in different stages of their lives and different stages of their relationships, and tries to show that all of them are doomed to fail. Naturally, all of the couples are connected in some way, unbeknownst to them- at first.
There's Alice (Bell) and Noah (Ed Helms, The Hangover films), who aren't in any kind of trouble, really, but need the money, so Alice lies and says they are "on the rocks" and tries to play it that way for the cameras- without filling in her husband on what she's up to, mind you, which ostensibly leads to some laughs, but doesn't really.
There's also her sister, Fanny (Amber Heard, Machete Kills) and her husband, Zander (Wyatt Cenac, The Daily Show), who claim to have an "open" relationship, and who Vivian recruit without informing Alice- and for more money, no less.
Finally, there's Cybil (Mary Steenburgen, Stepbrothers) and Harvey (Paul Reiser, Stranger Things), who are suffering a bit of a mid-life crisis, complete with a motorcycle for him and a lack of interest in sex for her. Vivian recruits them after overhearing a blow-out between the two in a public setting, a local diner.
Naturally, Vivian tries to intentionally stir things up amongst the couples, paying a guy to try and come on to Fanny to test whether or not she and her husband really have an open relationship, and so forth, but typically, her efforts fail.
If anything, the actual arguments that arise have nothing to do with her efforts, but rather happen organically because of the inherent weirdness of the situation, particularly when one half of the couple lies to the other, as Alice does with Noah by not telling him the real nature of what the documentary is about- to say nothing of her attempts to get pregnant.
Of course, Bell makes sure things don't get TOO ugly at any point, which is why, no doubt, she opted to take out a lengthy sequence in which Fanny shows a natural talent for basketball, much to Alice's chagrin, and a jealous Alice beats the tar out of her for showing off in a surprisingly brutal fashion. It's more disturbing than funny, because of how nasty the beat-down is, so I don't blame her for taking it out.
Which leads to the main problem in the film: the tone. Unlike her first film, which Bell obviously knew exactly what she wanted it to be, Bell seems unsure of herself here- perhaps one can chalk it up to the dreaded sophomore slump. As a result, the film is all over the place- dramatic when it should be funny, and never as funny as it clearly wants to be, period.
On the one hand, it's well-acted- how can it not be with such a cast of pros? But the script is underwritten and the general idea just doesn't lend itself to big laughs. If anything, I just felt sorry for everyone, save Vivian, who's just an awful person.
It's also weirdly dated, to have come out in the "#MeToo" era. Note the ending, in which a guy (Chace Crawford, looking to remake his pretty boy image from Gossip Girl, I guess) literally grabs Vivian and slings her over his shoulder, caveman-style and hauls her off, seemingly implying that she just needs to get laid to get that massive chip off her shoulder.
I'm not arguing that she doesn't, but the way in which the film goes about it is tone deaf, given the current climate. Granted, the film was probably made before all that stuff went down in earnest, but still, in this day and age, it was more alarming than funny, not unlike that deleted scene I mentioned.
That's not the only dubious instance in the movie, either. At one point, Alice dubiously finds herself working at a massage parlor- with benefits, wink, wink- to raise some extra cash for her failing business. And who should come in? Yep, it's Harvey, whose wife "gifts" him with a massage to get him off her back, sexually.
Do I even have to explain how many things are wrong with that scenario? I mean, I get that it's a movie, and things are often exaggerated, but still, outside of The Client List, I'm guessing that sort of thing doesn't happen much IRL. But the main thing is, it's less funny than sad, really, which is not what you want in a comedy.
In fact, that was my main problem overall with the film- most of the stuff that happens makes you feel bad for the characters, not want to laugh at them. If anything, it feels mean-spirited to WANT us to laugh at them, which Bell clearly does.
Granted, things end in the expected "happy ending" type way- not a spoiler, you can see it coming a mile away- but still, Bell clearly wants to have her cake and eat it, too, and it just doesn't come off that way. Instead, the film is just listless and kinda meh overall.
Don't get me wrong, the cast gives it their all, and everyone has their respective moments in which they shine here and there. As an actress herself, Bell knows enough to at least do that. But on the whole, the movie is so tonally off, it just doesn't work at all. A few decently funny moments do not a good movie make, as it were.
We need more female filmmakers out there, especially these days, and Bell does have a unique voice, and she proved that in her first feature. When paired with solid material, she can knock it out of the park. However, this time out she comes up short.
Maybe the third time will be the charm. Until then, I suggest you do... skip this movie. 😢
