DIRECTOR
Barry Sonnenfeld
SCREENWRITERS
Robert Ramsey
Matthew Stone
based
on the novel by
Dave Barry
PRODUCERS
Tom Jacobson
Barry Josephson
Barry Sonnenfeld
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Greg Gardiner
MUSIC
James Newton Howard
EDITOR
Steven Weisberg
CAST
Tim Allen (Eliot Arnold)
Rene Russo (Anna Herk)
Jason Lee (Puggy)
Stanley Tucci (Arthur Herk)
Janeane Garofalo (Monica)
Dennis Farina (Henry)
Tom Sizemore (Snake)
Johnny Knoxville (Eddie)
Omar Epps (Greer)
Heavy D (Seitz)
Zooey Deschanel (Jenny Herk)
Ben Foster (Matt Arnold)
Sofía Vergara (Nina)
Patrick Warburton (Walter)
Jack Kehler (Leonard)
Andy Richter (Jack Pendick)
MPAA rating: PG-13
Running
time: 85m
U.S. release: April 5, 2002
Video availability: TBA
Official
website
Other Barry
Sonnenfeld films
reviewed on this website:
- Men
in Black
- Men
in Black II
- Wild
Wild West
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For the second time, director
Barry Sonnenfeld has made a movie adaptation that was a funnier,
better movie in its original book form. First was 1995's Get
Shorty, an amiable enough time-passer based on the laugh-out-loud
Elmore Leonard novel. Now comes, belatedly, Big Trouble,
based on Dave Barry's 1999 novel-length goof, a farce consciously
patterned on the work of fellow South Florida writer Carl Hiaasen.
Barry, hilariously, was incapable of striking a detached Novelist
Stance in his first whack at fiction; he was always throwing
in vintage little asides that let you know this wasn't a serious
novel, just a tall tale told by your pal Dave.
Your pal Barry (Sonnenfeld,
that is) has no such informal gifts, though he tries, bewilderingly,
for a comically scattershot tone by beginning the movie with
one narrator and then abandoning him for another. (This might
be more accurately blamed on scripters Robert Ramsey and Matthew
Stone, whose previous attempts at "comedy" were Destiny
Turns on the Radio and Life.)
The film is more or less faithful to the events in Barry's novel,
lifts a good deal of Barry's witty dialogue, and recruits a proven
cast of laugh-winners. Why, then, is it so resolutely unfunny?
It's not because of the scene that forced the film's release
to be postponed after 9/11, wherein a pair of oafish thugs successfully
smuggle a nuclear bomb onto a plane. That's unfunny for the same
reason everything else here is unfunny: Sonnenfeld, despite early
success with the Addams Family films (I credit those to
writer Paul Rudnick), just isn't a natural at this comedy thing.
Failed newspaper writer turned
adman Eliot Arnold (Tim Allen) -- by virtue of being played by
Tim Allen, one supposes -- takes center stage, whereas in Barry's
book he was just one of many benighted characters pairing off
in pursuit of the nuke. Eliot's son Matt (Ben Foster) has targeted
schoolmate Jenny (Zooey Deschanel) to be "killed" by
squirt gun; Eliot falls for Jenny's mom Anna (Rene Russo), who's
stuck in a grisly marriage to an embezzling lout named Arthur
Herk (Stanley Tucci). Along for the ride are two cops (Janeane
Garofalo and Patrick Warburton), two FBI guys (Omar Epps and
Heavy D), two hit men (Dennis Farina and Jack Kehler), and the
aforementioned two lowlife thugs (Tom Sizemore and Johnny Knoxville).
There's also a drifter named Puggy (Jason Lee), who lives in
the Herks' tree and falls for their frightened maid Nina (Sofía
Vergara).
At the beginning, Puggy tells
us about Noah's ark, possibly to explain why Big Trouble
has so many duos running around (not to mention goats, bufotenine-spewing
toads, and the world's stupidest dog, a favorite Barry motif).
It's easy to see why Barry structured it that way: endless scenes
of two people getting on each other's nerves. But the pairing-up
in the movie seldom works; despite the talented cast, the matchmaking
isn't inspired. Putting the sharp-tongued Janeane Garofalo and
the laconic, macho Patrick Warburton together sounds funnier
than it turns out to be; Tim Allen and Rene Russo strike no romantic
or comedic sparks; Stanley Tucci, steeped in his character's
obnoxiousness and, one hopes, using the paycheck to fund another
movie like Big
Night, is almost painful to watch. Even that great bulldog
Dennis Farina, who outright stole Get Shorty, plays a
disappointingly mild hit man.
Sonnenfeld plays most of Barry's
notes but misses the music. I laughed often while reading the
book; the movie never got more than a chortle from me. The script
makes two particularly senseless changes to Barry's story near
the end: Tim Allen races to the rescue, when readers know
it should be Janeane Garofalo (who's left handcuffed to a shelf
along with Tucci, switching places with Warburton's character
in the book, for no reason other than to bring in a lame strip-search
gag); and Tucci, hallucinating under the influence of the toad's
bufotenine, thinks the family dog is Martha Stewart. In the book,
it was Elizabeth Dole; I could try to explain why Elizabeth Dole
was funnier, but if you don't know, I can't tell you.
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