Drowning Mona
Grade: C-
Cast: Cast: Casey Affleck, Neve Campbell, Danny DeVito, Bette Midler,William Fichtner, Marcus Thomas, and Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Nick Gomez
Rated PG-13 for language, comic violence, and sexual content

Here's a "What if?" question for you: What if someone decided to do a premature remake of a recent film, change the deceased character's disposition from sunny to miserable and no one (including myself) cared? Well, then you'd get "Drowning Mona." The film it "remakes" is "Cookie's Fortune," but as is the case with most remakes, the original is better...a lot better in this case. "Drowning Mona" is a disaster, a sad sack film that, if it played its cards right, could've been a charming, goofy cult classic. It might've been good is what I'm getting at. What a thought.

It's one of those comic mysteries where the director of screenwriter wants you to believe that everyone had a motive to do it. The motives in this film, however are stupid and "been there-done that," in a way. We've seen these motives a million different times in a million different movies. One thing this one could've used is a healty dose of originality.

In displayig my shear loathing for this film, I have totally bypassed giving you the plot info. It's comic mystery about a bitchy woman named Mona Dearly (Bette Midler) who is murdered by someone in her quaint little town. Who could it be? Her son Jeff (Marcus Thomas), who only has one hand thanks to Mona? Jeff's business partner Bobby Calzone (Casey Affleck)? Mona's husband Phil (William Fichtner)? The local waitress Rona (Jamie Lee Curtis), who is having relations with both Jeff and Phil? Danny DeVito investigates while his daughter Ellie (Neve Campbell) is getting ready for her upcoming wedding to Bobby.

One of the major faults is that after a while, we don't care who did or didn't do it. Isn't that the point of these type of movies, to keep us involved until the end? Not in "Drowning Mona," no siree. Mona opts for forced laughs over keeping its audience interested (or natural laughs for that matter).

The acting is half of the problem here. It's bland as hell. Danny DeVito has more energy and effectiveness in a smaller part in "Man on the Moon." Casey Affleck has the biggest part and does a good job. Along with Neve Campbell ("Scream 3"), those two are the only ones to exhibit energy. Jamie Lee Curtis makes a fool out of herself. Midler does the same with her over-the-top acting William Fichtner was better in "Go." In fact, everyone in this movie has been better in something else.

I would like to say shame on you to Nick Gomez for wasting an extremely talented cast and on top of that, butchering one of 99's best ("Cookie's Fortune"). I would like to say shame on me for wasting my money on this.


-Brian Jones, 1999/2002