FilM

Goldie fever

Fifteen years after her last movie (the terrible The Banger Sisters), Goldie Hawn has been coaxed back onto the big screen opposite Amy Schumer in Snatched. While it’s great to have her back, it would’ve been super great had the movie been totally worth her time.

Hawn and Schumer play Linda and Emily, mother and daughter, in what amounts to some decent dirty jokes, some dumb dirty jokes, and a lot of flat jokes powered by a plot with no real sense of purpose. The comic duo work hard to make it all a bit of fun, but they are ultimately taken down by a film that aspires to mediocrity.

When Emily is dumped by her rocker boyfriend (the always funny Randall Park), she has no traveling partner for her upcoming, non-refundable trip to Ecuador. In steps Linda, a crazy cat lady mom who barely ever leaves the house. Just like that, the two wind up sleeping in a king bed in a lavish resort, with Emily constantly taking selfies to impress her Facebook friends, and Linda covered up with scarves by the pool.

After Emily meets a hot British guy (Tom Bateman), she ultimately winds up on a sightseeing trip with mom along for the ride. Mom and daughter wind up kidnapped and held for ransom, with nobody but their nerd son/brother (Ike Barinholtz) to save their asses.

Director Jonathan Levine (50/50) isn’t afraid to take things to mighty dark places—Emily’s attempts to free her and mom from their captors has a body count—and the film earns its R-rating with raunchy humor (Schumer’s specialty). Some of the gags are good, including a bit involving a scorpion, an ill-fated attempt to swing on a vine, and a tongueless former special ops soldier (Joan Cusack) flipping through the air like Spider-Man.

Hawn and Schumer make for a convincing mommy-daughter combo, and Snatched has its worth for putting the two in a movie together. They rise above the material often enough to make the film somewhat forgivable, especially if you are a fan of both. (And, really, why wouldn’t you be?)

The problem with Snatched is that a scenario of two women being kidnapped is about as unfunny as you can get for starters, and writer Katie Dippold (who co-wrote the awful Ghostbusters reboot) doesn’t come up with a series of events that feels original. Like the Ghostbusters movie before it, Snatched drops some comedy mega-stars into a played-out plot built on swampland and expects the whole thing to stay afloat given the screen talent employed.

They get a few good laughs but not enough to cancel out the creatively barren dreariness of the story. What they wind up doing is sort of neutralizing the movie, making it a little less dark than a straight kidnapping caper. The resultant vibe is one of flatness.

Now, given the relative failure of this endeavor, I would hope Goldie Hawn doesn’t get discouraged by it. Let’s hope this movie is the first of many that see one of the greats return to relatively steady work. Truth is, she still has it, and she manages to make a lot of potentially stale moments in the film earn at least a chortle. It’s a weird thing to ponder that she’s been away for a decade-and-a-half, because her timing is spot on.

As for Schumer, she has a way with gross-out humor that allows you to keep rooting for her the grosser she gets. She’s just as funny as Hawn here, and it was an inspired idea to put the two together in a movie.

Leaving Snatched, my general feeling was “Yeah, I just saw that,” and not much beyond. Happy as heck to see Goldie again, and I enjoy the Schumer shtick to an extent, but Snatched feels more like something for Sandler and his Netflix cronies than a vehicle for the return of Goldie Hawn. Ω

“Don’t take it out on me, Goldie. i didn’t write the damn movie.”

Snatched 12345

3Beauty and the Beast This live-action take on the classic Disney animated musical isn’t a shot-for-shot remake of the original like, say, Gus Van Sant’s time-wasting Psycho effort. However, it does follow a lot of the same plot points and incorporates enough of the musical numbers to give you that sense of déja vu while watching it. Thankfully, Emma Watson makes it worthwhile. Hermione makes for a strong Belle. Since director Bill Condon retains the music from the original animated movie, Watson is asked to sing, and it’s pretty evident that AutoTune is her friend. She has a Kanye West thing going. As the Beast, Dan Stevens gives a decent enough performance through motion-capture. The original intent was to have Stevens wearing prosthetics only, but he probably looked like Mr. Snuffleupagus in dailies, so they called upon the help of beloved computers. Like King Kong, the CGI creation blends in nicely with his totally human, organic cast member. The cast and crew labor to make musical numbers like “Gaston” and “Be Our Guest” pop with the creative energy of the animated version, but they don’t quite reach those heights. They are nicely rendered, for sure, but not on the masterpiece level that was the 1991 film.

1The Circle This is a clueless movie based on the novel by Dave Eggers, a lame attempt at satire in regard to social networking and the invasion of privacy during the digital age. After slaving away at a temp job, Mae Holland (Emma Watson) lands a gig at The Circle thanks to her friend Annie (Karen Gillan), a top player at the company. The Circle is all of your basic modern day computer entities—Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.—wrapped into one big digital corporate burrito. It’s run by a friendly-looking, coffee cup-toting, Steve Jobs-like entity named Bailey (Tom Hanks) and his sidekick Stenton (Patton Oswalt, a.k.a. TV’s Son of TV’s Frank on the new incarnation of Mystery Science Theater 3000). Mae progresses from a customer service rep to a big player in the company seemingly overnight, and let’s just say that ascension is a wee bit unconvincing. Watson’s portrayal of Holland’s supposed turmoil and opinion swings lacks any sort of dimension, wit or shock value. Yes, much of this can be blamed on the screenplay written, in part, by Eggers himself and director James Ponsoldt. It lacks the insight and dark humor this sort of film craves. But, while often an enjoyable movie presence, Watson might lack the talent to pull a role like this, one that requires her to be unlikeable in many ways. The Circle is obnoxious, sloppy and full of aimless arguments. You know … like most of your Facebook and Twitter news feeds.

2The Fate of the Furious With The Fate of the Furious, easily the most stupidly titled installment in the Furious franchise—yes, even more stupid than the name Tokyo Drift—you get to see the single most disgusting, stomach-churning, horrifying moment in cinema so far this year. That would be when Charlize Theron plants a big, sloppy kiss on Vin Diesel, the image of which is some kind of “Woman from Monster Meets the Pillsbury Dough Boy On Steroids” nightmare. Some five years ago, I made up a list of five things I never wanted to see, and that came in at number three, right under “Donald Trump as President” and “Spiders in My Scrambled Eggs Being Served to Me By a Man with Weeping Hand Sores.” Somewhere along the way, the Furious franchise went completely bonkers and became less about cars racing around and more about dudes who think hair on the top of their heads is total bullshit and also think upper arms should be the size of a bull’s torso. It also went off on some sort of international spy team tangent, something that worked to a hilarious degree in Furious 7. In The Fate of the Furious, the franchise trajectory becomes ridiculous without being much fun.

1Going in Style This is a lousy remake of the “old guys rob a bank wearing rubber noses” bleak comedy from back in 1979 that starred George Burns and Art Carney. The original was directed by Martin Brest, the guy who would go on to direct Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run and, uh oh, Gigli. This take loses all of the charm of that fun and slightly dark Burns vehicle. It’s super heavy on schmaltz, and it asks a strong cast to embarrass themselves for more than 90 minutes. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin replace Burns, Carney and Lee Strasberg in the updated story, and that setup probably looked pretty good on paper. Unfortunately, they handed the film to Zach Braff, the guy from Scrubs, to direct. Braff does so with all the subtlety and nuance of an M80 going off in a candlelight yoga class. The heist itself insists that it is clever while being rather rote and mundane. Caine replaces Burns as Joe, the brains of the group. Joe, during a visit to a bank to complain about his upcoming foreclosure, witnesses a bank robbery. So, naturally, when he and his pals’ pensions go away, he decides to rob a bank. Then, after some gentle persuading with Willie (Freeman) and Albert (Arkin), they rob a bank. The big twist here is that they rob a bank wearing Rat Pack masks instead of the rubber nose glasses they wore in the original.

4Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 The trippy Marvel fun continues with this big, nutty, spiraling sequel that brings the fun, along with a lot of daddy issues. Star-Lord, a.k.a. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), had some major mommy issues in the first movie, and this time out his dad takes a turn at messing with his head. The dad comes in the form of Ego (Kurt Russell—yes!), who we see hanging out with Quill’s mom in the ’70s during the film’s prologue. (The CGI and practical makeup anti-aging effects on Kurt Russell ranks as one of the best examples of that particular trick to date.) After a killer opening credits sequence that features a battle with a giant slug thing while Baby Groot dances to ELO, the Guardians—including Quill, Baby Groot (voice of Vin Diesel), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (David Bautista) and Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper)—find themselves on another quest. They are quickly diverted to Ego’s planet, where Quill finds out more about his celestial origins. Russell proves to be perfectly cast as Quill’s bombastic father, with Pratt possessing many of the legendary action film star’s alluring traits. Seeing them on screen together, at one point playing catch with an energy ball Quill conjures with newfound powers, is one of the film’s great joys. It also proves to be misleading, because writer-director James Gunn isn’t going to settle for an easy story about a wayward son reuniting with a dream dad. As it turns out, Ego makes Darth Vader look like Mike Brady on a paternal level. Vol. 2 is as dark and nasty as it is silly and action-packed.

4Norman Richard Gere delivers one of his very best performances as Norman, a New York “businessman” who doesn’t really have a business or a job. A mysterious, earbudwearing, graying old man riding the trains and grabbing crackers for dinner at the local synagogue, Norman, nevertheless, has big aspirations. A self-professed “good swimmer” fighting to stay afloat, Norman finds himself in the company of an up-and-coming Israeli politician (an excellent Lior Ashkenazi) and, in a moment of generosity/desperation, buys the man a pair of shoes. That gesture earns him some good favor as the politician becomes the Israeli Prime Minister, and Norman’s act of kindness earns him the man’s friendship. With big friends comes more notoriety, and Norman finds himself involved in political intrigue and rising responsibility in the New York Jewish community. Gere, who basically shrinks himself under a sun cap and trench coat, sparkles in the role, making Norman a memorable, likeable and appropriately annoying character. Supporting performances from Dan Stevens, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Steve Buscemi round out an excellent cast. Director Joseph Cedar presents the story in surprisingly layered, often funny fashion, with a definite tragedy at its center. Gere’s work here is some of the year’s best so far.