Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
This is one of those films I keep forgetting I've already heard of. I read the original review by Max California and immediately forgot having done so. Even now, even after editing this piece, I can't tell you what it's about. What evil powers does CLETIS TOUT have? Read and learn...
Our buddy Max California reviewed Cletus Tout on 3.21.2001. No one cares about this movie (the original Max review only got 4 talkbacks), but I need to perform my civic duty to keep people from wasting time on it. Here's a review with spoilers.
Summary: WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP! Worst test screening I've been to ever, and I saw 'Pootie Tang'! About 10% of the audience laughed at some of the jokes, and most of them were in the Fox reserved section.
Max California already went into the setup, but here's a refresher. Critical Jim (Tim Allen) is sent to kill Cletus Tout for videotaping a mobster killing a hooker. An escaped ex-con named Finch (Christian Slater) has taken Tout's identity. Finch escaped with a magician (Richard Dreyfuss) who has hidden lots of diamonds and who loves his daughter (Portia Di Rossi).
Good enough setup, while the execution is excruciating to sit through for 90 minutes. It starts as as a heist movie. Then it's a comedy. Then there's a Cinemax 'dying while having rough sex with the mob' scene. Then it goes straight from a gross-out coroner scene to a heartfelt romance. Pick a genre, and stick with it!
The writer/director Chris Ver Weil should be demoted, or given a kick in the ass to do better work. Chris won awards 2 years ago for Blink of an Eye. I've seen these actors in better performances, so either they all got colds for the shoot, or the writer/director wasn't giving them enough help.
Answer me this, Chris:
- WHY DIDN'T THE MAGICIAN TELL HIS DAUGHTER IN THE FIRST PLACE WHERE THE FUCKING DIAMONDS WERE???!!! WHAT THE FUCK!
- Why didn't the magician take his daughter and himself and the diamonds out of the country within the first 10 minutes of the movie? And you never explain how he got caught...suddenly, it's 30 years later and he's in jail.
- Homing birds do not follow directions by speaking addresses to them! How the fuck did the homing pigeons find Finch at the hotel, where the pigeons had probably never been before?
- How the hell did the magician use film to project himself 'inside' the balloon? Why would he use film projection in an elaborate scheme to leave prison when he could have just STOLE THE FUCKING TRUCK anyway after using a smoke screen?
The skinny: This should be released as a TV / cable movie or straight to video. And I should try not to go to any more screenings at Fox, where they subjected me to both this crap and Pootie Tang so far this year.
Your Protector From Craptastic Movies,
--Caller From L.A.
