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Starring Cameron Diaz, Ewan McGregor, Ian Holm, Maury Chaykin, Holly Hunter, Delroy Lindo, Dan Hedaya, Tony Shaloub, Stanley Tucci. Written by John Hodge. Directed by Danny Boyle. A pair of angels in heaven (Lindo and Hunter) have been having a run of bad luck keeping couples together. The angel Gabriel (Hedaya) gives them one last chance to make a love match, or they'll be forced to stay on earth instead of returning to heaven. A janitor (McGregor) is fired after being replaced by a robot, and he decides to go to see his greedy, callous boss (Holm) to get his job back. The boss's daughter Celine (Diaz) is with daddy when McGregor arrives, and after a series of convoluted events, he kidnaps her as leverage. Celine is really mad at her dad, and decides to become a willing victim in an effort to get some money out of daddy. The angels take the form of bounty hunters for daddy in an effort to get the couple together. Of course they eventually fall in love, but not until they go through some of the most implausible plot developments imaginable. The trailer in theatres looked very promising, and with the same writer/director/producer team as in the outstanding Trainspotting, and the quite good Shallow Grave, I was anticipating something good. Big disappointment. The movie attempts to be a screwball comedy with attitude. But the only screwball part of the film is the script. It can't decide when to play it straight, or go off into obvious impossibilities. For example, McGregor and Diaz go into a karaoke bar, and partway through their karoake number, they are put into a tux and glamour dress, and mouth their way throug a broadway song and dance production. For another example, after angel Lindo give McGregor and Diaz the ransom money, McGregor takes off without Diaz, and they inexplicably stop when angel Hunter is lying in the middle of the right line, when he could have easily driven around her. Naturally, she has a gun, and stops him. Then Lindo brings Diaz, and pretends he's going to kill McGregor, hoping Diaz will intervene, and even though McGregor took off without her, she does help him escape. But even though they're now together and the angels work should be done, angel Hunter hangs on to the truck they're driving seemingly trying to stop the duo. And when they crash the truck in an effort to get rid of Hunter, they don't even bother to walk down the hill to get the million dollar plus ransom money out of the truck. Much of the movie continues along the line of incomprehensible and illogical plot developments. The angels device is way overused, and serves to slow down any momentum the movie might have gotten going. Who would have thought the makers of a movie as good as Trainspotting could make a movie this lame. Despite the brutal story, Diaz stands out as the spoiled, but incredibly sexy and spunky rich girl. She brings what energy the film has. And much of the rest of the cast does the best it can with the material it's given, with Chaykin, Tucci and Shaloub standing above the rest. Don't bother wasting your money going to see this.   |