No.192 : The Pallbearer (1996)

The Pallbearer at the IMDb

‘Friend’ David Schwimmer was two years into his tenure as Ross Geller when he made this clunker. The glory days of ‘Run Fat Boy Run’ were still a decade away.

Ross plays against type as a drippy architecture graduate who is looking for a job and who lives with his Mom. We have already seen a man gas himself in his car (did he see the trailer for this?) so it’s no surprise when Ross gets the call to be a pallbearer at the funeral. It's mistaken identity however, as he doesn’t remember the dead man, Bill. Rather than say ‘Sorry I don’t know him, have you got the right person?’ he instead agrees.

He meets with the dead man’s mother, Judge Hershey, and is soon talked into giving the eulogy too. The school yearbook is no use as it doesn’t have a picture of Bill and offers only that he was in the chess club. Ross’ fortunes look up however when he meets his high school crush, Gwyneth Paltrow, at a party. She doesn’t remember Ross and mistakes him for someone else. There’s your clue to the big surprise!

Ross helps Hershey tidy up her dead son’s room and is soon in her pants too. Meanwhile Ross’ friends are due to get married and are each having difficulties, with one of the husbands having designs on Paltrow.

After snagging the dead man’s car and his mother, Ross starts to cool on the older lady and gains confidence with Paltrow, eventually bedding her after an interminable courtship. Bumps in the road appear however with Paltrow keen to spread her wings and the rightly pissed off Hershey looking for answers. Will Ross get the job and the girl or was this all a big waste of time?

This was an awful effort where very little happens and no laughs or drama are offered. Ross is a horrible character and although I’m sure the idea is to chart his progress to being a more rounded and caring man he just comes across as a tit. Paltrow as the object of his affections is no better and her attempts at a New York / Italian accent are laughable - when she bothers to try.

I think they were maybe looking for a Woody Allen style take on modern relationships but it was just dreadful. To make out the grieving, humped and dumped, mother as a nutter was cruel as was the revelation that her son was just plain forgettable. No redemption for him but a smidgen for Ross who gives away the death trap Pinto to allow Paltrow to follow her dreams.

The surprise twist that it was another ‘Tom’ that was really the friend was signalled in the first five minutes and it seemed pointless for this one to say he hardly knew the dead guy either.

There was a decent cast lurking in the background such as Toni Colette and Hector Salamanca but both had little to do, with Hector not even having his bell to keep us amused.

The film lacked any point and was morally dubious throughout - Harvey Weinstein producing? Oh well that explains it!

THE Tag Line - Drop it in a Hole 38%

No.164 : The Do-Over (2016)

The Do-Over at the IMDb

Oh no! That old ‘Does a hyphen discount a film from definite article status?’ chestnut again. As previously advised it does not, and if you think I’m watching this piece of tosh and not writing about it you have another thought coming!

The film opens with David Spade - the clues were there from the off! - attending his high school reunion. He meets up with Max, Adam Sandler doing his usual, and the pair share some truths about their lives since they were at school. Spade has married the prom queen but she’s likely boning her ex whilst leaving Spade to raise her terrible twins. Spade has a job in a bank in a supermarket and although this is shown as a demeaning, dead end job it helps towards the end when he displays some frankly unbelievable web-fu and high finance skills.

Sandler says he’s a FBI agent and is stalked by his nutty girlfriend, Kathryn Hahn. After a few product placement Coronas the pair part, with Spade later taking an offer to meet with Sandler on his yacht. They have a great day but when the yacht explodes Sandler explains his plan - let’s ditch our dull lives and take over those of two dead bodies that he’s taken ownership of in his real job as a coroner. Spade quickly agrees despite Sandler lying to him throughout.

A secret agenda is however in play and there will be many more twists and turns before the real plan is revealed. Can ether of the misfits find happiness and why is the cure to cancer so important? Has Spade really nailed that hot chick or are other agendas in play?

This was a pretty formulaic comedy with only jokes and humour left out of the mix. Sandler makes no effort at characterisation and is basically a dick throughout. He’s later revealed to have proper motivations, but for the most part he’s just being an asshole and wrecking people's lives. Fair enough when it’s David Spade’s but that 100 minutes of my life he’s taken with nothing in return.

To be fair the sunny locations and bikinied lovelies are nice but you do get the sense that everyone involved is having far more fun than you the viewer. There were a couple of subplots such as a haphazard American Express investigator who keeps getting hurt and Mike off ‘Veep’ who for some reason was asked to do an annoying accent.

For your money you also get some torture and genital mutilation but that only goes so far to redress the boredom threshold. The woman characters are very poor with one shameful scene at the end seeing two of them have a full on cat fight whilst the men stand back and shrug - Chicks eh?!

If you have even a two laugh criteria you’ll find this film lacking and there wasn’t even a Rob Schneider cameo to keep me distracted.

The film ends with a bit of hope for us all in the form of a cancer cure being found up David Spade’s ass. That pretty much sums up the film’s ambitions set against what it delivered.


THE Tag Line : We’ll always have the women on the boat. 24%

No.83 : The Infidel (2010)

The Infidel at the IMDb

 Thousands of years of religious strife are sorted out in 90 minutes in this largely mirth free and simplistic British comedy.

Comedian and certainly not actor Omid Djalili stars as a fat middle-aged Muslim who runs a taxi firm. He has an unfeasibly young and attractive wife and a son who is hoping to marry his girlfriend if he can impress her step father. Omid is a pleasant enough chap unless he comes across his bete noir - black taxi cabs.

He has recently lost his mother and runs afoul of a Jewish taxi driver who lives across the road from mum’s house. After this brief preamble we quickly reach the crux of the matter as the Muslim Omid finds his birth certificate and, after a funny stint from Miranda Hart, discovers he’s adopted and is in fact Jewish.

Meanwhile his son reveals that his father in law to be is a radical cleric who is stirring up hatred in the community. Omid is aghast but to keep his son happy he dons his Muslim dress and bones up on his Koran. Choosing to complicate matters somewhat he tries to trace his Jewish father and after a rebuke from Matt Lucas’ rabbi he also mugs up on his Torah after enlisting the help of the once unfriendly Jewish cab driver. With all these worlds colliding you could be forgiven for thinking mirth will ensue - it totally doesn’t.

To delve into his twin culture Omid attends an anti Israel rally and becomes a flash point for the campaign when he burns his mistakenly exposed skullcap to appease the radical elements of the crowd. To keep the balance he also attend a Bar Mitzvah with his new friend but will soon have to choose sides.

That predictable modern plot point of ‘Youtube sensation’ threatens to derails his schemes of supporting his son and meeting the father who gave him up.

Can a ridiculous subplot involving an 80’s pop sensation save the day and can the radical Muslim crowd be convinced that love and togetherness is the way forward?

To be honest this film was better than I thought but it had way too few laughs to sustain what was a preachy message about all getting on together. Omid is a likable guy but I wasn’t buying into his character’s arc which was all over the place like Noah with a wonky sat-nav.

The eventual resolution was way too easy and simplistic, and the idea that a room full of Muslims who turn up to hear a radical preacher speak are so easy swayed beggared belief. The exposure of the nasty cleric was also too pat and although foreshadowed it was too reliant on coincidence and indeed a requirement to be detached from reality.

The best parts of the film belonged to the cameo turns such as Matt Lucas, Miranda Hart and Tony Hayers off ‘Alan Partridge’. There were a couple of decent recurring gags such as people asking that Omid not to do the ‘inverted commas’ gesture but overall the message was too blatant and the resolution too far fetched and drawn out to retain any goodwill as the credits rolled.

THE Tag Line : Excommunicate!  58%