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September 11-17, 2008
buzz@boulderweekly.com
To see, or not to see
by Michael Phillips
Underdogs underwhelm
by Tasha Robinson
 To see, or not to see
by Michael Phillips
Steve Coogan is the whole show in Hamlet 2, and while director and co-writer Andrew Fleming (Dick) is strictly rudimentary in terms of technique and style, his British star pockets every available laugh plus a few unavailable ones.
I didn’t think much of this movie at its Sundance premiere in January, where Hamlet 2 fetched a $10 million distribution bid from Focus Features. Maybe I was sitting in the No Laughing section. Maybe I was tired. It seemed sloppy and toothless in its spoofy depiction of intolerant yahoos versus the forces of free-thinking artistic expression. But a second viewing proved more interesting, mostly for Coogan’s contribution — his burbling way of making cluelessness priceless. I suggest, therefore, that you see it a second time and skip the first.
The premise recalls Waiting for Guffman, and its protagonist is an unofficial cousin of Corky St. Clair. Coogan plays a sometime actor who runs a makeshift high school drama program in Tucson. His name is virtually impossible to pronounce correctly: Dana Marschz, and the way Coogan corrects everyone on that last name, it comes out “Marsch”-pause-skip-“zah.”
Tucson is not kind to Dana. His boozy, hostile wife (Catherine Keener) offers little solace, and budget cuts threaten the existence of the high school drama classes, such as they are. Then Dana bets his soul on his magnum opus, a sequel to Hamlet that allows the Danish prince to deal with his unresolved father issues, marry the presumed-drowned Ophelia and share the stage with Jesus Christ, who leads the high school chorus in a show tune called “Rock Me Sexy Jesus.” The town is ripped asunder by the controversy — is this abomination trash or art or arty trash or trashy art or what?
The film, which really is sloppy, slips around in terms of tone and goes every which way. Elisabeth Shue plays a version of herself, gamely. The scenes between Coogan and Keener appear to have wriggled free from a Cassavetes film. My favorite bit is Coogan’s Dana meeting Shue for the first time — a breathless fan coming upon one of his biggest idols. The wobbly bits in Hamlet 2 involve the scenes built upon the Dangerous Minds mind-set, tuned for comedy, wherein Dana wrestles with an uneasy mixture of dweeby Anglo and surly Hispanic kids, destined to be brought together in the Hamlet sequel.
In a recent New York Times interview, Fleming acknowledged he suggested to Coogan that Dana be played with a British dialect. No go, Coogan said, and as related by Fleming, “... finally he explained that this kind of unbridled enthusiasm without any intelligence behind it just doesn’t exist in England. There’s no equivalent.” Is the jolly mediocrity embodied by Dana Marschz a uniquely American phenomenon? I wonder. The film isn’t the vehicle the character deserves, and certainly not what the actor deserves. But it certainly has its moments.
—MCT
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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 Underdogs underwhelm
by Tasha Robinson
Musicians in need of a metronome could pick up a steady beat from The Longshots, a thoroughly conventional sports-underdog movie based on the real-life first female quarterback in Pop Warner football. The film ticks steadily through the setup about a perennial losing team, the turnaround and series of victories, the big setback, the crucial championship game.
That said, many sports movies eke tension and excitement out of this well-worn routine. The Longshots manages in spots as well, thanks to tightly edited games that focus solely on big, powerful payoff moments. But the few exhilarating highs can’t rescue the rest of the film.
Ice Cube stars as Curtis Plummer, an unemployed former football hero who never recovered from his mother’s death, the accident that ended his sports career or the factory closing that gutted his small town of Minden, Ill. Then he notices that his shy, bookish, unpopular niece Jasmine (Keke Palmer) has a surprisingly strong throwing arm. Soon, he’s coaching her to hit receivers by targeting posters of Beyonce Knowles and Tyra Banks; shortly thereafter, he secures her a place on the local junior football team, whose miserable string of losses keeps the players from being picky about Jasmine’s gender. Success on the field brings Jasmine out of her shell and Minden out of its collective funk, as the locals finally start showing some hometown pride.
The best thing about Longshots is Palmer, a talented young actor who brings more delicacy and depth to the material than it deserves — for instance, during a stiffly choreographed scene where a popular girl mocks her name by offering her a toilet plunger, Palmer’s vulnerable coltishness is the only convincing thing on screen.
But even she can’t get around the flat, cliché-driven script by TV writer-producer Nick Santora (Prison Break) and Akeelah writer-director Doug Atchison. None of their principals talks like people; they’re all exposition machines, rigidly laying out their conflicts and dreams. The only humanity or fun in the dialogue comes from bit players who can crack jokes among themselves, because they aren’t too busy explaining the plot. The soundtrack is similarly unsubtle, with inspirational music prodding viewers at every turn: When Jasmine first touches a football, for instance, the swelling music stops just short of flights of angels bursting into song.
Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst, who made his directorial debut with 2007’s little-seen The Education of Charlie Banks, brings a workmanlike efficiency to The Longshots but not much style, apart from a few sequences in which he wanders away from the action to explore Minden’s ragged brick streets and crumbling buildings. And even those shots seem obligatory and lacking in inspiration. It’s almost always rewarding to watch an underdog triumph — what else could explain why movies exactly like this keep being made? — but Longshots is one underdog that’s hard to love and harder still to champion.
—MCT
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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