Made of Honor (*3/4)

I’ve got to write this review quickly, lest I forget this by-the-numbers romantic comedy completely. Playing into the fantasy that the womanizing man truly only wants true love, it flips the scenario of My Best Friend’s Wedding. That is, when he (Patrick Dempsey) realizes he loves her (Michelle Monaghan), she’s about to marry someone else, some Scottish dude. Now, I don’t remember the Julia Roberts character sleeping around so much in Wedding. That idea must have been lifted from some other movie. In any case, it’s not easy to believe that these attractive people who’ve been best pals for ten years have never previously considered each other as romantic partners, and the flimsy setup offered up by the three screenwriters doesn’t help sell it. They’re too busy setting up a generic rom-com plot to create characters of even the slightest depth. There’s the overachieving romantic rival to introduce, the over-elaborate wedding that, for no apparent reason, is set to take place in mere weeks, and, at last, the race-against-time finale. As for the comedy part of the equation, I believe hilarity was intended by having the guy be the “maid” of honor. Cue the gay jokes, and isn’t it funny for a guy to be helping to choose the china pattern? On the bright side, the cheap physical humor and forced wackiness is kept to a minimum. Still, this movie was so dull that it probably could have used a pie fight or two.

IMDB link

viewed 5/3/08; reviewed 5/5/08

Charlie Wilson’s War (***1/2)

Texas senator procures financing for covert war against Soviets. What great material for a comedy! But it actually is in this retelling based on the nonfiction book by George Crile. Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) was best known, if at all, as a playboy, and as the movie opens we find him charming a couple of much younger women in a hot tub, pausing just long enough to take in a TV news report on the latest news from Afghanistan, where the Soviet army is consolidating its hold following the 1979 invasion. All I remember about that was being pissed off that it caused Jimmy Carter to boycott the Moscow Olympics the next year, which had no discernible impact on the Kremlin. And neither, apparently, did the CIA’s meager efforts to aid the Afghans. Enter Wilson, who, using that same charm, a position on a defense subcommittee, and the assistance of a conservative socialite (Julia Roberts) and an insubordinate agent (Philip Seymour Hoffman), managed to get Congress to appropriate funds to arm the Afghan mujihadeen.

Mike Nichols (The Graduate), who directed the underrated Clintonian drama Primary Colors, has made a different kind of political movie here, one that may appeal to people who aren’t ordinarily fascinated by politics. It will, however, appeal to people who liked The West Wing, whose creator Aaron Sorkin is responsible for the smart dialogue and economical script. In well under two hours, Sorkin and Nichols make what must have been an arduous process look something like fun. Of course, wars, cold and otherwise, aren’t fun, and there’s just enough in there to remind us of that, but mostly this movie is about outsize personalities, not history. Hanks and Roberts are ideally cast, and Hoffman, having a banner year with The Savages and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, seems to be having a blast as blowsy CIA man Gust Avrakotos. The ending is a reminder that some of the mujihadeen of the 1980s became the Taliban of the 1990s, but that’s another story, and this movie succeeds by keeping it concise.

IMDB link

reviewed 1/13/08

Perfect Stranger (**1/2)

? Tabloid reporter Halle Berry gets the goods on a lying senator by lying and telling him she represents a conservative group, then finds her story quashed by the powers that be. Undeterred by the setback, or journalistic ethics, she goes undercover to find out what a womanizing adman (Bruce Willis) might know about the death of a former lover.
+ The appeal here is quick pacing with a twist ending. Willis and Berry are engaging without causing you to actually care about their characters. Giovanni Ribisi is creepy but oddly compelling in the otherwise clichéd role of the computer-genius helper, who in this case palpably lusts after his partner in investigation.
- It’s easy to have a surprise ending when you don’t need to follow the contours of reality. It’s like if someone made a movie about Donald Trump where you eventually learned that he secretly spent his free time doing charity work for the poor, but hadn’t wanted to toot his own horn. Or one where Britney Spears was secretly a rocket scientist. Okay, maybe it’s not that unrealistic. There are little hints about how everything fits together, but they mostly come from mini-flashbacks rather than the behavior of the characters. This movie has some entertainment value, but it’s forgettable fluff, right down to the title, that made me wonder if Berry, having won an Oscar five years ago, is trying to assure herself of never getting nominated for another.
= **1/2 Does the admittedly surprising ending deserve praise when it seems so gimmicky? Probably, since it’s more than most Hollywood “thrillers” give us these days. But some movies, like Fracture, do that and more.

IMDB link

reviewed 4/27/07

Casanova (**3/4)

Heath Ledger is the famous lover, trying to escape the law while wooing a feminist (Sienna Miller) in Venice. With snappy dialogue and a revisionist plot making use of a mistaken-identity premise, it may remind you of a lesser Shakespeare in Love.

In an odd coincidence, Heath Ledger will be playing both a gay cowboy and a famous lothario, possibly in the same multiplex. Casanova’s introduced here stealing away from a nunnery, having apparently seduced most of the occupants. Only a hastily arranged marriage can save him from some rather draconian morality laws that they seem to have had in Venice back in the day (the 1700s), even though hardly anyone in town pays them any mind. And only winning over his true love (Sienna Miller) can save him from the hastily arranged marriage.  

Casanova appeals to the belief—fantasy, some would say— that the promiscuous man is only wanting for a woman who is his equal before settling down. Ideally, the woman should be so smart and industrious that she herself appears virginal. So it is with Miller’s character, who has been writing feminist treatises under a pseudonym. She has no time for a notorious floozy like Casanova, so he too pretends to be somebody else. A certain amount of comedy ensues, aided by Oliver Platt (wearing a fat suit) as a visiting businessman being conned by both of them. Like director Lasse Hallström’s previous Chocolat, it’s a period film whose heroine has a rather modern sensibility that gets her in trouble. And like that film, it’s a big fluffy fairy tale more than a historical drama (though the filming was on location). It reminded me of Shakespeare in Love in feel, perhaps in part because an uncredited Tom Stoppard, that film’s writer, supposedly polished up some of the dialogue. Overall, I found it a bit familiar, but it’s worth a look if you find the premise amusing.

IMDb link

circulated via email 12/22/05 and posted online 9/20/13