The Foursome

I saw a close-to-final cut of this movie and was pleasantly impressed. It is pretty unassuming but manages to touch on that yuppie reunion drama-comedy niche without being overly cloying. Kevin Dillon pulls off the misfit with the heart of gold character and is able to carry the film. The nudity is fairly mild and not particularly exploitive -- you gotta commend a 40-ish, non-svelte actress for being willing to trounce around naked on a golf course at night! Plus the movie has got its share of genuine chuckles and a few good laughs (which is more than you can say for a lot of outright so-called comedies). Golfers will enjoy it but anyone could do a lot worse for a rental.

This film wasn't bad, but it's far from great. Except for the nudity and coarse language, it felt more like a movie of the week than a feature. The characters were portrayed well enough by the cast, but they were pretty 2-dimensional. Donnie was your typical fat guy buffoon character, with the exception that he and his wife mate like bunnies. I kept wanting the guy playing Ted to turn into Crispin Glover in a bad wig. Except for the trophy wife, the female characters were practically interchangeable (although Rick's wife seemed to be more of an age with the trophy wife than with the other two. The message of the film, while nice, was nothing new and the script didn't deliver it with any subtlety.

Norm Foster is Canada's most popular playwright, and The Foursome one of his more popular plays. It's a play that presents a good opportunity for a screen adaptation, but is a challenging play to adapt. The play takes place exclusively at the tee of each of the eighteen holes of a golf course, involves only four characters and consists almost entirely of dialogue. A film using the play as a screenplay would be dull indeed, as the audience expects the film to use its ability to show us different scenes and more complex action to tell the story.

This screenplay fails to translate the play effectively to the screen, and for two main reasons. First, the play is an ensemble work--the merciless macho banter of the golfers touches nerves in all four characters and forces them to justify their lives. Here there is a focus on the character of Rick which skews the balance among the characters. Second, the adapter has added the characters of the golfers' wives and invented subplots and interactions among them, added a gay course marshal, added a chase scene involving golf carts and added an extra 18 holes of golf. None of these additions help the real point of the story which is the exposure of the reality of the golfers' lives (often kept as carefully guarded secrets). While making room for all of this rubbish, the screenwriter has cut away plot point after plot point from the stage play, effectively gutting the characters, especially Ted, Donnie and Cam, and leaving empty caricatures. At the same time the carefully laid foundations in the play have been so eroded that the characters' actions (and especially the denouement) seem arbitrary rather than natural for them. For an example, in the play we hear that Rick gave Donnie a wedgie at the reunion. Instead of showing us this incident, which tells us a lot about Rick and Donnie and their relationship, and which would be effective cinematically, the whole event disappears. Bits of Foster's dialogue float to the surface from time to time but usually missing context and sometimes missing the punchline. An exception is Rick's plan to sell Brazilian Pepper Trees which arrives intact and hilarious.

Considering the weak script, the actors made a reasonably good job of this. I was particularly impressed with Paul Jarrett's Ted (the role Foster himself played in the theatrical debut) and with Nicole Oliver as Cam's wife Lori. Production values were mostly solid throughout. I thought the opening titles, though clever, were a little hard to read.

Generally this was a squandered opportunity to do a really good adaptation of a very good play. A pity.

As someone who has performed Norm Foster's The Foursome on stage, I was intrigued to see a movie version of the play. I was very disappointed in the result. I enjoy Norm's work and it is always well received by audiences.

This play doesn't represent Norm's work at all and very much of the material that is enjoyed by the live audience was deleted. The female characters are much larger and more interesting when left to the audience's imagination. Not that I was disappointed with the ladies performances, they did the best they could with what they had! It is really too bad that this movie couldn't be more true to the play.

This is another 20-minute rental. Even at that, you wonder why it took you so long to hit the OFF button. The only reason I even rented this stinker is because it involved golf. Four buddies get together for a college reunion and a round of golf. The reunion sets up one 'hilarious' moment and gives you a peak at the heroes and their lives. The golf just gives them a reason to drink and complain. When are they going to give actors a golf lesson before casting them in a golf movie. The on-course action was somewhat realistic, just not funny or entertaining. The duffer duffed, the stud hit bombs away and the foils were predictably foiled. The reunion stuff had been done far better in any number of movies, not all of those good. For four best friends, there seemed no camaraderie at all. And yet, this movie was not bad enough to even make fun of. And certainly not good enough to watch for very long. Do yourself a favor -- rent Golf Balls instead. At least, while the jokes are lame, the women are hot.