Um Policial em Apuros

I was surprised last night when I saw the poster for this one at Blockbuster. Being a big Steve Buscemi fan, I try to keep up on his work but I must have missed this one somewhere. Denis Leary and Elizabeth Hurley were also top-billed so I decided to take it home. Once it was all said and done, I had gotten pretty much what I had expected: An offbeat comedy with quirky characters and some unexpected touches of heart. I can't say I care much for the title, but the movie does make for a pretty entertaining 90 minutes.

Denis Leary plays the somewhat burnt-out detective, Ray Pluto, who has just failed to stop a big shooting from going down at a local fast food joint. It's a mess, to say the least, and it doesn't help that the crime was stopped by a dorky seven year old kid with coke bottle glasses. This disgrace, and a bad back problem (which was the cause for the said fast food incident) has forced him to take a little time off, where he meets up with a sexy chiropractor played by none other than Liz Hurley.

Meanwhile, we meet the Superintendent of Ray's apartment building (Luis Guzman who's great as ever), the super's teenage daughter, a couple of identically dressed, bumbling screenwriters, and a couple of crooks who are even dumber. Since the whole thing moves at a nice leisurely pace, we learn that Ray is not the luckiest guy in the world. He recently lost his wife and son in a horrible accident and his big pleasure is to smoke pot and watch aerobic videos. His partner, Jerry (Buscemi) is having problems concerning his sexuality and the case that he was on has just been assigned to another detective. Not only does he have a recent tragedy to deal with, but also a bad back and a ruined reputation to restore.

While watching all of the fun characters, you can be sure that they will all cross paths sooner or later, and somehow, everything will tie together in the end. I had a fun time with this one and surprisingly, one particularly emotional scene near the end, brought a tear to my eye. That's very surprising for a movie like this. If you're not a fan of the actors or the genre, then you may have a hard time with it, but if oddball characters are your thing, then you'll be right at home. 8/10

This has all the ingredients of a good bad imitation Quentin Tarantino movie. The recipe goes something like this. You first have a crummy urban setting with lots of vulgar characters. You add a plot that richochets meaninglessly from one scene to another. If one of the scenes has something to do with hamburgers, so much the better. Organize the scenes so that a handful of different sets of characters inhabits each. Make sure the characters dress oddly or are otherwise groomed distinctively. (Marcellus had a bandaid on the back of his neck, so you can have one of the characters wear a rather larger bandage on his neck too, if you like.) Give the dialogue a quirky cast. Have a conversational exchange irrelevant to the plot -- if not about Quarter Pounders, then about why it is that girls can say things to other girls like, "Hey, guys, let's get out of here," and about why it is that girls can call other girls "guys," but guys can't call each other "girls." Mix in characters of different races and ethnic background. Organize the sets of characters into what we call in haute cuisine "subplots." The characters in each "subplot" should meet each other from time to time. Add as much violence as you want, being certain that although it is rendered realistically on screen it is treated matter-of-factly by your characters. Garnish with jokes. Serve tepid.

Tarantino's movies can be immensely enjoyable because you know while you're watching them that you're seeing originals. Nobody did quite what he did before he did it. But Tarantino's work bears the same relationship to "Double Whammy" as Bernard Buffet's work does to those acrylic paintings you see on motel walls -- hasty sketches of sailing ships with a thousand drooping stays and shrouds.

I'll briefly mention the "subplots" here. Steve Buscemi is worried because he once glanced at the hero's a** and is afraid he's becoming gay. Two weird dudes, one of them trying desperately to ape his black partner in manner and speech, are "mega-ultra-realist" screenwriters who must enact every episode from their developing opus. Elizabeth Hurley is a chiropractor recommended by Buscemi to the hero, Leary, as someone who can cure Leary's bad back, which unfortunately prevented him from stopping a mass murderer in a burger shop. (You see how the "subplots" overlap a bit, like the circles in a Venn diagram?)

None of this movie is believable in the slightest, but perhaps the least believable incident of all involves Leary picking up the phone and calling his new girl friend, Hurley. Hurley has spent the previous night working on Leary's back and other anatomical parts. For no perceptible reason, he tells this drop-dead gorgeous feral creature with those infinitely deep blue eyes and that sluttish lisp that, "I've thought things over and I don't think we should see each other anymore. I'm just not ready for this." Half the men on the planet are ready for this, if he's not.

Hurley, Buscemi, and Guzman give us the best performances. Chris Noth is interesting too. It's surprising how, with his black hair slicked back and gelled, draped in an expensive-looking wardrobe that is too flashy for most tastes, he looks and acts like a villain. He'd make a pretty good heavy, actually, now that he's getting lumpier. An easy actor to watch. Guzman occupies some of the same territory; a striking physical presence whose valence could lean in either direction.

The art direction is pretty good. The settings are supposed to look sleazy and they do. And the score is cute. What we hear behind the credits sounds a little like The Saxophone Quartet.

But that's not enough to make up for the rest of the movie. In a way it's kind of an embarrassment to watch, like DePalma's rip offs of Hitchcock. It's a creepy feeling to watch people degrade any talents they might have for the sake of a few bucks, although, God knows, we don't always realize what the outcome is going to look like.

Anyway, it's a waste of time.

Just saw the film and I enjoyed how the layers were pulled back one at a time, until all the links were shown. I originally thought the unique characters of Cletis and Duke were there just to add flavor, but then they turned out to be more vital. And the understated approach of not stating outright that Jo Jo and Ping Pong were being hired to kill "Papi" left me feeling that the movie did not take our intelligence for granted, but assumed that the viewer is smart enough to figure it out. Denis Leary is funny, but I liked the supporting cast just as much. Without them, this funny comedy would have been pretty flat.

Oh, and what is with Duke looking and sounding like Vanilla Ice?? Even to the shaved eyebrows and the slicked up hair :)

Now let me start off by saying this film ever won't win any awards. That said, I did find it surprisingly enjoyable, especially after reading so many negative reviews. It is kind of a Tarantino lite, with an urban setting, quirky characters, cartoon violence, irregular dialogue and strange plot twists. If you are a fan of films with a traditional narrative, this is not the movie for you. However, if you are a fan of Denis Leary (not unlike Tommy Gavin here) and you are a fan of black comedy, you might like this. It's one of Decillo's lesser works, but it's still more charming than what you might find at the Multiplex. I was rarely bored, and i had a few good chuckles, that's all i ask of a late night cable film. So give it a chance.

Denis Leary plays Raymond Pluto, a detective fallen from grace after his bad back causes him to fail preventing a fast-food shooting. Worse yet, a nerdy seven-year old kid saves the day. Now Pluto, along with his partner (Buscemi) and his chiropractor(Hurley), is searching for redemption. And, with the help of a pair of inept screenwriters and some unscrupulous gang members, Pluto may save the day yet...or die trying. The unique cast works towards the film's strengths, as do the wry comedy, but the film's obvious low budget hinders it from achieving it's obvious potential. Still, it's a lot more enjoyable than most of the mainstream stuff that Hollywood is trying to pass off as entertainment these days. Buscemi steals every scene he's in as he reveals problems with his sexual identity.