A lot of Hollywood remakes of non-American films change things for the worse; this remake of a Canadian film called Starbuck,
which was released stateside just a few months earlier, changes the
title, the actors, and the setting (Montreal to Brooklyn), but not much
else, not even the writer-director. I do wonder whether it was boring
for Ken Scott to remake his own movie. Virtually every scene is the same
as in the original.
Once again, the story follows a happy-go-lucky meat delivery man (Vince Vaughn) whose
easy-spending ways are about to catch up with him. At the same time, so
are some of the 533 children, now young adults, that he fathered via
sperm donations with the code name Starbuck. They’re threatening to sue
to learn his identity even as his girlfriend (Cobie Smulders), having conceived with him
the natural way, wants him to be just a sperm donor; she’d rather raise the
child alone.
Clearly, some life changes are in order. Starbuck, aka David,
doesn’t want to become an instant father to hundreds, yet can’t resist
seeing what his progeny are up to. (His employment in the family
business and previous allowances for incompetency allows him plenty of
free time.) As in the Canadian version, this makes for a sometimes
humorous, sometimes tender story. Compared to Patrick Huard’s version of
Starbuck, Vaughn is a bit less scruffy, but the role of a genial
screw-up suits him. (So, apparently, do scene-for-scene remakes: he
played Norman Bates in the 1998 Psycho.) The lawyer/best friend
character is played by Chris Pratt, who once again urges Starbuck to use
an insanity defense when he’s committed no crime. Even the baffling
plot points are recycled, but if you didn’t see the original version
this one will be just as good, just as this partly recycled review
should be just as good as my Starbuck review, if you haven’t read that.
IMDb link
viewed 11/19/13 and posted 11/19/13
No comments:
Post a Comment