Sweet n' Low
by
Lovell
Mahan-Moutaw
Gwen and Eddie (John Cusack and Catherine Zeta-Jones) are America's
Sweethearts. They star in kitschy films together and produce huge
box office because America loves them, as onscreen lovers and real life
husband and wife. Unfortunately, Gwen falls for her Spanish co-star
and leaves Eddie to have a nervous breakdown. She goes on with her life,
which apparently consists mainly of being a shocking bitch. She also
suffers in her new role as America's villain. Eddie deals with his breakdown
by checking in for an extended stay at a new age clinic, after stalking
Gwen and, depending how you look at it, maybe attempting to murder her
and her new lover.
Their
last film is about to be released, and there is a problem because the
mad genius director refuses to show the picture to the studio, instead
insisting that it premiere at the press junket. The head of the studio
demands that the movie be sold to the press even before it is premiered.
To do this, the studio's master PR man, who happens to have just been
fired, needs to get Gwen and Eddie together for the press junket. He
calls on Gwen's darling and adorable assistant (and sister) Kiki (played
by Julia Roberts), to deliver the spoiled star. Eddie, emotionally destroyed
and perhaps slightly spoiled himself, goes in the hopes of another chance
with Gwen. There are many little problems, including the fact that Kiki
happens to have a huge crush on Eddie. Oh, and one last thing, Kiki
used to be sixty pounds heavier.
Even
though this seems like a huge mishmash of nonsense, it actually is a
great idea. It would have made a fantastic romance...if it had focused
on the blooming love affair between Kiki and Eddie. Further, it would
have been nice if Roberts and Cusack had even the slightest degree of
chemistry. (In fact, they do have a moment when Kiki is infuriated and
Eddie steps in to subdue her - unfortunately that moment was wasted
in a variety of ways which actually made me slightly angry at the misuse
of two such talents and the unwanted knowledge of the real movie they
could have made together.)
In addition, there is the little detail of Eddie being
a huge chump. The movie could have been a nice sarcastic commentary
on Hollywood, if the concept was fully explored and didn't have the
romantic side story. Or was the romantic side story the real story?
Hmmm. The picture (directed by Joe Roth) can't make up its mind.
There
are highlights in the film, including brilliant turns by Alan Arkin
as the new age guru therapist who patiently treats Eddie, and Christopher
Walken as the hysterically funny mad genius director. Also, Zeta-Jones
plays such an astronomically hideous bitch that it is incredible fun
to hate her. Cusack is good at comedy and pulls off some pretty fantastic
one-liners. When told that Gwen has a cottage instead of a suite at
the hotel (as Eddie has) because she has an entourage, Eddie replies,
"I'm a paranoid schizophrenic, I'm my own entourage." Finally, Billy
Crystal's Lee, the master PR man, is obviously having a blast skewering
studio executives, bitchy female stars, mushy male stars, PR machines,
genius directors and the entertainment press.
But
there are also many lowlights in the film, so many it is difficult to
enumerate all of them. They include Hank Azaria's overplayed Hector,
the Spanish lover. The joke of the accent is already old after about
ten seconds. Further, there isn't enough attention on building the relationship
between Eddie and Kiki, and I was left wondering if I really cared if
they ever get together or not. Roberts tries skillfully to save this
situation, using all of her romantic comedic wiles, but alas, fails.
Also, the little jabs taken at Hollywood are just fun and playful and
don't have enough bite to them (a page from Steve Martin's Bowfinger
book might have helped). And woefully, Seth Green, who plays Crystal's
sidekick, is underutilized.
One
of the worst mistakes is the fact that Kiki had to lose sixty pounds
to attract Eddie. I find this annoying in a Cinderella-gone-wrong type
of way. It didn't need to be a plot point, but for some reason it was,
and then they don't really pursue it. The movie attempts to deal with
this idiocy by having Eddie mention that she always looked good to him,
heavy or not. Further making this hard to take, when they put Roberts
into her fat suit they gave her about thirty or forty pounds instead
of sixty. To finish with this litany of lowlights, at the end of the
film, the audience finds no satisfaction. Although each character's
storyline is wrapped up, the climax is wishy-washy. You hope for Kiki
to kick up a stink, or Gwen to get what she deserves, or Eddie to grow
some cojones, but none of this really happens.
Billy Crystal wrote America's Sweethearts with
Peter Tolan, and he should have taken a more consistently mature attitude
toward the material. There were great moments ruined by subsequent juvenile
moments. It would have been better if no attention was paid to the lowest
common denominator.
It seems to me that Cusack could have helped with that. At the very
least he should be above this type of material. This was disappointing
for Cusack fans like myself. The real problem with the film, though,
is that it seems to want to pay attention to too many things and it
fails by not providing enough attention to anything. I've made it sound
awful, but in truth there are enough moments of hilarity, plus the charm
of Cusack, Roberts and Crystal, to actually make it worth a matinee
or, later, a rental. Really.
Here are some Cool Movie rules that one should not break:
1) One cannot be cool when one is trying to be cool.
2) Tarantino is the only one who can pull off the writing of Tarantinoesque
dialogue riffs. If you need to do some kind of clever riff, be yourself...or
get Tarantino to write it for you.
3) John Travolta is only cool at being a bad guy when he is playing
Nicolas Cage being a bad guy. Plus, it needs to be a John Woo film.
(Actually, John Travolta is simply not cool - he may have been once,
but he takes himself too seriously now.)
Swordfish
is a film about terrorism, the FBI, the DEA - well, let's just say a
bevy of government agencies - and computer hacking. But it's really
just a hodgepodge of what writer Skip Woods and director Dominic Sena
thought would be really cool. The story makes little to no sense. The
entire movie seems to only be an excuse to highlight John Travolta's
hair, show Halle Berry's breasts, and have Hugh Jackman tee off on top
of a trailer wearing nothing but a towel, while mentioning his "chi"
with a straight face.
I
didn't know anything about this film going in. I thought, for some bizarre
reason, that it was meant to be an intellectual thriller. I had no idea
it was just a summer action flick. It is the Don Cheadle Factor that
threw me. I expect Don Cheadle's work to be worthwhile, or at least
his part in said work (Traffic an example of the former, Family
Man an example of the latter). I hate to say it, but this time it
doesn't work. The Don Factor did not factor.
This film sports one of my movie pet peeves. Actors put
on twenty, thirty pounds to play a role. They work with dialect coaches
to be able to speak with an accent. They dye their hair. They do things
to their teeth. They go to all lengths. Why do they not learn how to
type? 
Or,
when showing the hands of the actor "typing" why does the director not
hire someone who can type or do a good rendition of a hunt-n-peck hacker?
Why do typing noises and typing shots in films sound and look so damn
fake? I type practically every day, I am a good typist. I know what
typing looks like and sounds like. My ex was a hunt-n-pecker, he typed
abominably but he got the job done and it didn't sound like the crashing
of a dozen keys. I am sure that most hackers do not type like me, but
I'm also sure that to be good hackers they would have to take their
fingers away from the asdfghjkl; line on the keyboard. I can understand
that it would be hard, nay, nearly impossible to type well when attempting
to hack in to the Department of Defense with a gun to your head and
you just happen to be the current recipient of a blow job. But, no matter
how fast your hands need to move over those keys, only one key at a
time, thank you ever so much.
There
are action flicks that are cool, too cool - so cool they are hot. Maybe
they don't make a whole helluva lot of sense or they have terrible acting,
but they've got a coolness that is beyond cool. The Matrix is
an example. Then there are action flicks that are cool because they
don't take themselves too seriously, they are goofy cool. The Mummy
is an example. And then there are stories that are cool because they
are cool and smartly written. Snatch is an example. This is none
of the above. It takes itself way to seriously, tries too hard to be
cool, ends up making little sense, having less attitude and just being
an opportunity for a two hour perv on Hugh Jackman (those Aussies are
killing me). So, I would honestly say, don't bother with Swordfish.
It is silly and useless and doesn't make any sense.
©2001 Lovell Mahan-Moutaw
CineScene
