Harry here, Barry Sonnenfeld has been having filmic trouble for a while now. And BIG TROUBLE seems indicative of quite a bit of that. Wrong project wrong time sort of things. Hopefully with MEN IN BLACK 2 he'll have a good one under his belt, but I'm not really convinced yet. We'll see. Capone doesn't go ballistic on this one, he just sounds like he didn't have a very good time out of it. Hmmm... doesn't sound fun...
Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here. BIG TROUBLE is the kind of film that headline writers love, because it’s a no-brainer. If the movie stinks, the headline can simple be the title of the film with the word “Indeed” stuck on the end. If the movie is good, the headline will probably read “Big Trouble Big Fun” or something like that. I have one word for you: Indeed. But BIG TROUBLE has something else working against it: Time. I’ll explain momentarily.
BIG TROUBLE is not a colossally bad as last week’s DEATH TO SMOOCHY. I probably laughed a dozen times in BIG TROUBLE versus twice in SMOOCHY. The trouble with TROUBLE (another good headline) is that it’s too madcap for my tastes. For some inexplicable reason, a large number of people seemed to like last year’s RAT RACE, and BIG TROUBLE has a lot in common with that limp comedy. A mostly talented although far from reliable cast occupies BIG TROUBLE. Let’s look at the names: Tim Allen, Rene Russo, Janeane Garofalo, Jason Lee, Tom Sizemore, Omar Epps, Stanley Tucci, Dennis Farina, Patrick Warburton, and Heavy D, who has actually impressed me quite a bit lately with his recurring role on “Boston Public” and is funny here. A lot of scene stealers in this bunch, which probably should have been clue Number 1 that things would go south.
Based on the book by humorist Dave Barry, BIG TROUBLE is about the lives of people living, visiting, or doing business in Miami. I don’t know if Barry’s book resembles this script in any way, but somebody hates Floridians. Nearly every one is portrayed as simple-minded and/or corrupt. This didn’t bother me, I’m just making a point. The story begins when Allen loses his job at the local paper; his son thinks he’s a big loser and Allen perpetuates this belief by buying a Geo. There’s another storyline about a dive bar run by Russians who use the bar as a front for gunrunning. A mysterious oversized silver truck arrives at the bar. Although the lid is opened many times, the audience is not shown what’s inside right away, but we know for sure it’s something big and bad. There is yet another storyline about a couple (Russo and Tucci) and their cute daughter (Zooey Deschanel), who Allen’s son just happens to have a crush on. Throw in a pair of recently sprung thugs (Sizemore and “Jackass’s” Johnny Knoxville), a pair of fairly competent Miami police officers (Garofalo and Warburton), a pair of FBI agents (Heavy D and Epps), and a homeless man (Lee) and you’ve got a very crowded 85-minute movie.
Director Barry Sonnenfeld (both MEN IN BLACK films; GET SHORTY) does a good job of keeping his organized chaos moving, and there’s a nice energy to the proceedings, but the humor is practically non-existent, at least in the script. If anything in this film made me laugh, it was strictly because of an individual actor cracked me up. Unfortunately, more than I laughed I said to myself, “Well that person was utterly wasted.” The always funny Jason Lee is probably the best example of this. All we learn about his character is that he likes Fritos and seems to be the only one who can lift the heavy suitcase.
Earlier I mentioned the Time element of BIG TROUBLE. If you don’t want to know what’s in the big suitcase, don’t read any more of this review. The last 20 minutes of this film take place in what can only be described as a pre-Sept. 11 airport, and what probably would have been hilarious nine months ago turns into something creepy and dated. There’s a nuclear bomb in the suitcase. The baddies who have possession of it (not actually knowing it’s a bomb) bridge a ticket agent so they don’t have to show photo IDs to buy their tickets, manage to send the bomb through the x-ray machine and get a gun through the metal detector, activate the bomb’s timer, and get it on board a plane. This part of the story is clearly why the film was delayed from its original September/October 2001 release date, but you know what? A five-year delay wouldn’t make this stuff any funnier. The audience I saw this film with fell stone cold silent everytime the ineptitude of airport security was showcased. And these final scenes were all that people were talking about in the lobby after the film. I can’t imagine people not be somewhat shaken by these images. It takes whatever wind is in the sails of BIG TROUBLE right out of them. I’m not here to judge the appropriateness or inappropriateness of one movie or another, but it probably would have suited this film to have reshot the ending of this film if possible, because what they’ve got now will kill any enthusiasm generated by the first 60-some minutes.
Still, I’m not coming down on the film because of the airport scenes. It was not particularly funny well before we get to that point. BIG TROUBLE is a lot of work for not a lot of payoff.
Capone (I want E-Mail From Gorgeous Women wanting a Crime Boss!)
