Summer Movie Review Roundup: Brothers, Balls, Cock

I'm reviewing three critically adored comedies today.

First is Mr. Woodcock, which has an astoundingly low Rotten Tomatoes (critical average) rating of 14%. Second is Balls of Fury, which has a pathetic 24%. And third is The Brothers Solomon, which has a pitiful 17%. 

Can they really be that bad?  

MR. WOODCOCK (C-)

John Farley (Seann William Scott, probably the twelfth choice for the role) was tormented by his gym teacher, Mr Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton), as a boy. He grows up, writes a self-help book to cope, returns home, and finds his mom (Susan Sarandon) dating Woodcock. And that's about it.

Just about every critic of this movie has griped about how lame it is to name a character "Woodcock" for laughs (the sitcom 'Til Death uses the exact same name for many a dreary punchline). I ask you -- didn't the overpraised Superbad do the exact same thing with "McLovin?" Superbad is an infinitely better film, of course, but I don't know why the repetition of a moderately amusing name is considered the lowest point of laziness in Woodcock, and the pinnacle of comic brilliance in Superbad.

The funny name as a joke is as old as comedy itself. The great W.C. Fields was probably the master, playing characters named Professor Eustace P. McGargle, T. Frothingill Bellows, Larson E. Whipsnade, Cuthbert J. Twillie, and Egbert Souse, to name just a few. The trouble with Woodcock is that the writers don't even really make jokes about the name, they just have characters say it again and again.

It ain't brain surgery! Saying "I'm gonna kill that Woodcock!" is not funny. Saying "I can't wait until I get my hands on that Woodcock!" is funnier. I'm not suggesting that alternate line would have saved the movie, or even that it's laugh-out-loud amusing, but at least it shows some thought and effort on my part to...make a joke! There aren't really jokes here at all. Dealing with the new guy your mom is dating could make for a very funny film, but this ain't it.

Thornton is watchable as ever, but I loved this asshole schtick in Bad Santa, really liked it in The Bad News Bears, hated it in the excruciating School for Scoundrels, and now this is surely enough. We're tired of it, and judging by his performance here, so is Thornton. Where's the Billy Bob of Sling Blade? Of A Simple Plan? Come back! Susan Sarandon (Susan Sarandon!) defines slumming here, but she does what she can. As for Scott, he simply shouldn't act anymore. It's that simple. I loved Stifler just as much as everyone else, but I'm not sure how he parlayed it into a decade-long career.

We see a little of Woodcock being a jerk to the kids, but not enough to be the jumping off point for the entire movie. It's partially the script's fault, but also Scott's, that the audience doesn't really know what Farley is so upset about. The movie has no momentum, it just chugs along until it fizzles out at its lifeless, laughless, utterly random and unsatisfying conclusion. The movie ends about like The Sopranos finale, it's just...over with no explanation. Only here, the only thing you're left to think about is how you could have better spent 87 minutes.

BALLS OF FURY (C)

Balls of Fury is the story of a child ping-pong star who blew his chance at Olympic gold, costing his father (ably played by T-1000) his life. Cut to the present (where he's played by Dan Fogler), he's out of shape and working in a dingy nightclub until the FBI needs his help bringing his father's killer (Christopher Walken) down.

Fury is a lazy, horribly shot little mess. It was written by Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant of The State and Reno: 911. Obviously they're capable of funny work, but take a look at their screenplay credits: Taxi, The Pacifier, Herbie: Fully Loaded. A Night at the Museum -- utterly terrible movies one and all. I've read interviews where they blame it on the director or the studio or whatever else, but Garant is directing here. There's no excuse. The really frustrating thing about Balls is that every ten minutes or so, there will be some random flash of genuine humor that keeps you watching.

I saw Dan Fogler in his Tony Award-winning role in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on Broadway, and thought he was hilarious. He's been called "a poor man's Jack Black" in every review of this film I've read, but I think he's better than that. He puts interesting spins on his lines, and he's got some funny physical bits here and there. He tries. Walken's work in this film cements the public's long-held suspicion that he is completely insane. He is so far over the top here that you can't help but smile, but a smile is about as far as it goes. Maggie Q gives an unbelievably limp "performance" -- a real shame after her crackling villainess role in Live Free or Die Hard. James Hong, perhaps the funniest Asian alive, gets the film's only real chuckles in the Pat Morita role (the exact same role he played in the pretty funny VH1 movie Totally Awesome). I was a little startled at how hard I laughed at his line: "Welcome to the underbelly of ping-pong, where fortunes are made and lost... I'm exaggerating, of course, but you get my point. People bet on ping-pong here."

That sort of verbal wit (hey, it worked on me) is in far too short supply, and more often than not, the movie is content to just pad each scene with a couple of people getting hit in the nuts. Balls is short enough and odd enough to hold a viewer's attention, but just barely.

THE BROTHERS SOLOMON (B-)

On Not Siskel and Not Ebert the other night, The Brothers Solomon was referred to as "the worst movie of this or any other year." It's rare to hear criticism that harsh, and I think the fact that it elicited such a strong reaction is proof that it's a lot more interesting than the other comedies I'm discussing today.

I knew Will Forte (star and writer of Solomon) when I worked at Saturday Night Live, and to this day I consider him to be the nicest celebrity I've met. He's eerily nice, and I never heard him say a negative word about anyone. A few months after I was done with the show, I saw him in a subway station, and he stopped and talked to me for fifteen minutes. He remembered my name, was interested in what I'd been up to over the summer. I would have been thrilled with a wave.  

Beneath Forte's sweet veneer lies an extremely dry, absurd, dark sense of humor -- a humor that is often based on discomfort and is certainly not for everyone. That's a good description of The Brothers Solomon, too.

Directed by the great Bob Odenkirk (always better with material he's written), Solomon is, at the very least, different. Let's get the problems out of the way first. 1) The plot is terrible. Wills Forte and Arnett are brothers. Their father (Lee Majors!) goes into a coma, and somebody thinks they heard him say something before he went under about wanting a grandson. Working off of that mighty flimsy premise, the brothers Solomon try to make a baby. Their quest leads them to Kristen Wiig, so funny on SNL and in Knocked Up. Here, the movie should start to shine, as these social retards attempt to connect with another human being, but 2) Wiig's role is underwritten, even by "female in a comedy" standards. She isn't given one funny moment, and it's not her fault. It's worth noting that all three of these comedies have horribly written, jokeless female roles. Let the girls be funny too! It doubles your laughs! And 3) Despite funny performances from Forte, Arnett (always good for a few chuckles, but hasn't been given anything up to his talents since Arrested Development), and a hilarious Chi McBride, a lot of material here simply doesn't work.

BUT what does work is very funny and occassionally achieves a kind of genius. The sequence where the boys stop off at a video store to deal with a late charge on the way to visit their father in the hospital, and the doctor's subsequent reaction to their tardiness, is a Seinfeld-ian delight. The "diaper training" sequence and its callback is gold. And the finale (the plane gag, you'll know it) is about as clever as movie comedy has gotten this year. It's definitely one you can wait to catch on video (it'll be there in about two weeks judging by the box office), but moments like the ones I just mentioned make Solomon too good to lump in with the Balls and the Cocks of the world.

tags: brothers solomon  will forte  will arnett  balls of fury  christopher walken  mr woodcock  billy bob thornton  susan sarandon  movies  movie reviews  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit