SAVING SILVERMAN review

SAVING SILVERMAN is a waste of time with intermittent moments of joy.

This was an early afternoon screening with a couple of other critics at the Alamo Drafthouse… my favorite theater. This was a screening set up by Quint and beforehand the feeling in the room was that we were all going to completely loathe the film.

While I didn’t end up completely loathing the film, this is not a film I would have came out of a theater having paid for being very happy. But there is perhaps a reason far more compelling than not wasting money on this movie for you not to go. If you see SAVING SILVERMAN… you will most likely be subjected to a trailer the likes of which only Hell itself could vomit forth into existence.

THE ADVENTURES OF JOE DIRT.

Christ on a termite eaten Cross! THIS TRAILER HURT ME!!! The trailer was at least 72 minutes long. It is a memory to repress, and fifty years from now when I inexplicably go bonkers and kill a big hair eighties rock-do wearing jerk and I’m laying on the couch trying to explain to the therapist why I went nuts… THE ADVENTURES OF JOE DIRT will be the breakthrough phrase. Suddenly I’ll begin crying and weeping and sobbing and pointing at this seed of hell placed into my noggin by SPADE and SONY that I will begin screaming in mortal anguish about. I might very well need to warn you to not go into a movie theater for the next 6 months… to not turn on the television… to not rent a SONY tape… just to protect you from this trailer. You might want to go on one of those PEACE CORPS missions. This trailer is the visual equivalent of passing broken glass. BEWARE.

There was a collective "WTF" after the trailer ended. Some folks had their head between their legs and were hyperventilating. It was as if Clubber Lang landed a blow between my shoulder blades. No Air.

The movie starts and everybody sort of holds on and hopes for the best. We didn’t want to see a bad movie, we just had a feeling that that was what we were in for.

The movie starts with a rather awful childhood sequence where they try to define the three guys as having their own pathetic short comings. Then we hop forward into the high school life… and that is when R Lee Ermey arrives as a High School Football Coach. Folks, this is where I lay it out for you. There are about 15 minutes of film here that I enjoyed at some level. Every second that R Lee Ermey is on-screen works wonderfully for me. "The only thing a woman wants from you is your man-juice!" Say that line in R Lee Ermey’s voice and coming out of his mouth and you have now saved yourself the money you would have wasted.

I’ll hit the characters/actors as they come…

JACK BLACK -- Ok, he rules in TENACIOUS D… He kicked ass in HIGH FIDELITY… Total goat blower in this film. Completely wasted and obnoxious. Unfunny based on material given to him… Tedium.

STEVE ZAHN -- Well, you’ve seen this character in every other Steve Zahn film, so why should it be any different here? I mean, there is nothing new here for him. He’s treading water as a performer and comedian with tired material that we see struggling to stay above water.

JASON BIGGS – A few ounces of lead could cure this problem… but I get the idea that this pie-f*cker is going to be haunting and polluting the screen with his big doe-eyes and smile for many more dreary hours of my cinema going life. There is not one moment in the film where he really works for me. Every line delivery and angle change on him seems to be a LINE DELIVERY and a new CAMERA ANGLE… There is no flow to his performance. He is a dam that impedes the flow of this movie at every single juncture. TERRIBLE.

AMANDA PEET -- I wish she stayed in magazines and centerfold spreads, because she has no on-screen charisma. She feels like a pouty faced Barbie doll, except that in TOY STORY 2, that Tour Guide Barbie had more charisma, charm and allure than this cold dead chicken of a performance we see in this film.

AMANDA DETMER – Alright, now this girl works on camera. She’s alive and vital. Sexy and alluring. Every moment that she is on, the film works, unless it is a two shot of her with anyone else, because they blow so badly that even she can’t distract from them. Also… until you see Amanda Detmer in a wet Nun outfit on a soft focused warm lit beach, you haven’t had a look at her.

R LEE ERMEY -- Had this movie been about the 3 above men trying to get into the pants of his daughter played by Amanda Detmer… this movie might’ve worked. But R. Lee and Amanda needed to be the focus of this movie. Ermy is simply one of the world’s greatest scene-chewers. There comes a point in the latter part of the film where he is supposed to have this amazing battle with Amanda Peet… Unfortunately the inept idiots in charge of this film didn’t realize how to shoot this fight to save their life. This could have been the moment to save the entire film… BUT NooooOOOOOOooooooOOO, instead they make it one-sided and shot sloppily. MISSED OPPORTUNITY.

NEIL DIAMOND -- Alright... This may be where the film lost me. The recent David Spade nightmare, LOST & FOUND also had a Neil Diamond fetish... It didn't work there... so they try it here. Biggs, Zahn and Black sideline their lives as a cover band doing Neil Diamond tunes in rhinestone shirts. They obsessively worship the man. Personally, Neil Diamond is not intrinsically funny. Perhaps if they used Barry Manilow as their god I could have laughed, but Neil is just mediocre in my eyes... whereas Barry Manilow is so pathetically inane and bland that the idea that these three losers would be publicly masturbating over his sainted image could have been funny. Or had it been TACO... doing cover tunes of old TACO classics... that would've been funny. Or maybe they all worshipped JOAN BAEZ... Neil Diamond just feels like someone saying, "Eh everyone does Elvis, who else is like that?" ENOUGH WITH THE NEIL DIAMOND B.S.!!!

If you find yourself being dragged to see this film, this isn’t BOYS AND GIRLS bad… or even HEAD OVER HEELS bad… This is more like PORKY’S 2 bad… it has moments… just nowhere near enough to justify it’s existence.

Of course humor is always an individual thing… I know that none of the folks I saw the movie with particularly enjoyed it… we had our laugh moments… but they were few and far between. But WHEW… Two in a row… Bad mojo man…