Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Boy, this one looks bad. What is it with Vince Vaughn? When he does something like MADE, he seems like one of the most exciting, interesting actors working right now, able to combine a real sense of danger with something deceptively likeable. I want to like his movies. But then he does dreck like THE CELL and, apparently, this one. But don't take my word for it... check out what Nimpkin has to say...
Hey Harry,
It's me--Nimpkin, the Last of the Donkey People. Awhile back I sent you some production art from Matrix 2 but those weasels at Warner Brothers made you yank them. Anyway, here's something far less thrilling!!
Attended a screening of “Domestic Disturbance” this evening on the Paramount lot. It was pretty much business as usual--they made us sign a non-disclosure agreement prior to entering and I promptly agreed with a smile. So, on to my review of “Domestic Disturbance”!!
It stars John Travolta, Vince Vaughn, Teri Polo, Steve Buscemi and a couple of other actors whom you’d recognize but couldn’t name off the top of your head. I’ll start with some not-too-spoilerish material and end with the good stuff.
This is a bad movie. In fact, this is an aggressively bad movie. Granted, it was still in a fairly early stage (uncorrected color, temp music, dummy titles), but the script is so riddled with logical errors and predictable “surprises” that this movie is already well beyond repair. The story is familiar territory: loving father and loving mother divorce leading son into troubled state; loving mother decides to re-marry but--gasp!--the step-father has a secret and quicker than you can say “Is the best you morons could do?” the kindly everyman tranforms into leering psychopath (and don’t they all?). Once the stepfather is established as the baddie, we get a quick murder witnessed by the troubled son. Of course, the police don’t believe the kid. After all, he’s the “troubled son”. When do the police ever believe a troubled son? From there, its a series of standard set-pieces: a couple of threatening encounters between step-father and troubled son; a few attacks; a fire; some chases. The resolution is, naturally, pat--the bad guy dies at the hand of loving father! And that’s it! Now onto the spoilers...
I used the term “logical errors” above and would like to expound upon that notion a little since the filmmakers obviously weren’t too concerned about it. In the best suspense films, the narrative is driven by a series of plausible, even ordinary situations that just wind tighter and tighter around the characters until reaching a conclusion that is not only thrilling, but believable and inescapable. In bad films--like this one--red herrings and spectacular coincidences are tossed around willy-nilly in order to push the story toward its obvious ending. If you happen to see this movie, I want you to ask yourself these questions after you leave: 1) When Vince Vaughn stabs Steve Buscemi in his car with a serrated knife with an 8-inch blade, where is all the blood? Vaughn wipes his car down with a fucking hankie and less than an hour later (in the movie’s time), the police are unable to find ANY evidence of the assault? Does this seem reasonable, especially considering the fact that the police surprise Vaughn before they search him? 2) How is that Vaughn’s character lives in this town under an assumed identity, builds businesses, throws around a ton of money and is never discovered, yet John Travolta’s character finds out Vaughn is an ex-bank robber in about--oh, fifteen minutes--on the Internet? 3) How come Travolta and Polo threaten to call the police following brutal attacks by Vaughn but never do? Christ, they have cell phones during the whole movie! Not only that, but instead of calling the police, Travolta and Polo call each other during the climactic scene! 4) Most galling of all, how come we don’t see Vaughn’s character die? Believe it or not, the finale has Vaughn and Travolta fighting underwater. A few minutes later, Travolta just steps out of the water and embraces loving mother and troubled son--and that’s it! The credits actually started rolling right there! I could go on and on (in fact, we did on the way home from Paramount. It was one of those “and why did this, and how could this” type of conversations. I’ll conclude simply by saying...avoid this movie! (and what a shitty MOTW title--“Domestic Disturbance?”) How about Lesbian Dykes from Beyond Infinity instead!
Could someone who's in Austin at the QT Fest do me a favor and ask him if he ever regrets giving John Travolta his career back?
"Moriarty" out.
