The Chosen One

I found the above description on this movie's board on IMDb, and it's better than anything I could come up with.

This is relevant because anyone expecting a typical Rob Schneider movie (The Hot Chick, Deuce Bigalow, Big Stan) will be very disappointed, or worse, depressed.

Rob Schneider plays Paul, a depressed alcoholic car salesman who tries to kill himself after being dumped by his lady. 3 shamen and a girl from Colombia find him, claiming he's the chosen one who will save their mountain. Paul then faces a series of situations at work and in life which help him make an important decision.

I certainly didn't expect a movie like this, as it is very bittersweet, and potentially a career-destroying move. But it has its heart in the right place, it feels honest, and I believe it must be commended for that.

Unfortunately, I can't say it's very good movie. "The Chosen One" looks cheap and feels very disjointed, with special effects that look like the ones found in Discovery Channel's documentaries from ten years ago. The pacing is weird, everything seems a little bit "off" and "direct-to-dvd".

The few comic moments are mostly black humor, and almost all of them are in Steve Buscemi's scenes. He's a top notch actor, and his superior quality clearly shows here when he elevates the whole movie to a whole new degree.

But I did like it, amazingly, and can certainly recommend it to people who need a little more light in their lives.

Just don't watch this thinking it's a comedy.

Let me start by saying that I have always been a Rob Schneider fan. The rubber faced act that Jim Carry brought to fame is all the better when its tinged with the smell of true desperation and for me this has always been the appeal of Rob Schneider.

Although brilliant, he has in many ways escaped fame and been relagated to the same bunker as legends such as Bruce Campbell, by which I mean that special group of guys who cant help but be funny even when they are trying to be serious.

I found myself at several points in this film bursting out laughing at Rob, even though he was just playing things straight. Not because he is a bad actor, far from it, but just because he is one of those guys that radiate humor like stink lines in a cartoon.

Quickly though, and despite the largely cheesy and casually racist plot, I found myself drawn into the Schneiders sinceer attempt to act his balls off, and do you know what, I don't think he did a bad job.

Everything about this movie should spell a flop, its obvious, stereotypical to the extreme, and more than a little ridiculous but a maturing Schneider some how makes it work and some how manages to extract from my blackening and shrivelled heart a grain of genuine emotion. So, well done Mr Schneider, your foray into drama has been a largely successful one, and it has been nice to see you act for a change.

Keep it up.

It's as if everyone in the film was acting in a comedy... except Rob Schneider, who played it totally straight. Not straight in a funny way like he was the straight man in a comedy. I mean he played it straight, as if he were in a serious drama. My reactions were; confusion, disappointment, irritation... and finally... well, after finally seeing that Rob was doing a darn fine job of dramatic acting (even though this was marketed as a comedy) I fast forwarded to the end, then ejected the DVD.

My final thought was, "Boy, he must have been mad at the director or something because it was like he intentionally ruined that movie by playing everything too straight." Rob is not a stupid guy. He had to have known he was screwing up what could have been a funny little comedy. Weird. I must say though, if his performance could be cut out and pasted into a drama it would have been very impressive.

When you think of Rob Schneider usually two things come to mind.

1. Small cameo in an Adam Sandler movie 2. Mediocre comedy good for a few laughs but overall a disaster However this movie is surprisingly compelling. It's not a comedy but simply a really nice story. Rob Schneider is a care salesman who is living a completely empty life. His wife has left him, he drinks all the time, he has no real friends and he is pretty much utterly frustrated with his life However things started changing when one day 3 holy man from a south American tribe and their interpreter Marissa played by the wonderful Caroline Gomez come to his life. They tell him that he is The Chose One who is meant to save their tribe.

He reacts like any one of us would react and dismisses them. However he is a truly nice guy and tries his best to help them feel comfortable and return back to their home. This slowly starts changing him and this is done in a really great way.

And of course there is Steve Buschemi who is great as always I didn't expect to like this movie or at most I expected a few cheap laughs. But I was wrong. It was a really good movie and I recommend it to everybody :)

This film is about a depressed car salesman who becomes the chosen one to make a Colombian mountain snow again for the sake of Iguaca tribesmen's existence.

I thought "The Chosen One" was a comedy, but I was wrong. In fact "The Chosen One" is a emotional drama that sees Paul find meaning in his tragic life. Paul tries to kill himself early on in the film, and he spends most of the time being depressed. This negative energy does have its effect on the viewers, causing unpleasant surprise and disappointment to people who expected comedy. If you look beyond that, "The Chosen One" has a nice message that priorities in life is not about money, and that there are things that transcend materialism and wealth. I hope "The Chosen One" will be appreciated for a good enlightening drama that it really is.