Thursday, April 03, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: What this war needs is A Man Apart

By Anthony Allison

Is the 24/7 diet of bloody footage from the Carnage News Network not enough for you? In the mood for an old-fashioned shoot-'em-up?

A Man Apart won't quite sate your bloodlust. And F. Gary Gray's moody drug-war movie isn't exactly "French Connection III" or "Traffic 2." But this slick confection will have to do until they disinter Dirty Harry or fish Sly Stalled-Career from the embalming fluid.

After single-handedly nabbing elusive Tijuana drug baron Geno Silva who, shades of Saddam, never sleeps in the same place twice, DEA superhero Vin Diesel returns to his wife (Jacqueline Obradors), cat and million-dollar California beachside abode. The furry feline is then apparently kittynapped by bad guys, giving Vin and sidekick Larenz Tate ample Rumsfeldian justification for unleashing a Rodney King kick-and-awe campaign on Porsche-driving cokehead Timothy Olyphant.

Why a Colombian drug lord is running a Mexican coke cartel ("You think you can come to my domain?" Silva sneers at the gringo invader) isn't entirely clear from Christian Gudegast and Paul Scheuring's otherwise predictable script. Strike one for globalization.

What is clear is that VD, the gravel-voiced Pestilence formerly known as Bouncer, has, post-XXX, gotten the full Hollywood hagiography treatment. He's now a bonafide Saint Diesel, or STD for short. God and penicillin help us all.

DysFunktional Family

offends equally

As you might expect in these politically correct times, Eddie Griffin manages to be an equal opportunity offender in DysFunktional Family. That's to say, George Gallo's concert film spotlighting Griffin's trenchant standup comedy act manages to poke offensive fun at everyone from George Washington to Michael Jackson.

Though Gallo's film is an obvious attempt to make Griffin a megastar like Bill Cosby or Richard Pryor (whom he wickedly impersonates), it's basically just a record of Eddie's triumphant return to his hometown, Kansas City, Mo. There, Gallo (who directed Griffin in Double Take) recorded candid interviews with family members, most notably Eddie's uncles Bucky, a wannabe porn king, and Curtis, an endearing ex-con who encouraged young Eddie to pursue his comedian dreams.

Griffin's profanity-laced act runs the gamut, from perceptive observations about how the 9/11 attacks briefly unified the nation to scabrous stuff about oral sex. So although it's churlish to quibble, Gallo's inclusion of Griffin's flagrantly homophobic sentiments seems both gratuitous and foolhardy, because it'll alienate any gay members of his potential audience. "Man, am I bad," says Griffin. "Did I go too far?" Yeah, bro. But that's the nature of standup: You're always gonna enrage someone.

What a Girl Wants

is a barf bag

Okay, girls. Wanna see a starmaking performance by a talented teen actress? Check out Stine Bjerregaard in Open Hearts. But for sainted Nickelodeon's sake stay away from What a Girl Wants.

This remake of The Reluctant Debutante makes an awful old movie even worse. William Douglas Home's dull satire was filmed in 1958 by the great Vincente Minnelli, with virginity-lousy Sandra Dee as an American visiting her estranged British father Rex Harrison and evil stepmom Kay Kendall.

In a transparent bid to ape The Princess Diaries' audience-pleasing formula, "Ally McBeal" director Dennie Gordon's first feature stars Amanda Byne (hopelessly out of her small-screen league) as the New Yorker disrupting her aristocratic English dad's stuffy social scene, and upsetting the best-laid plans of his political minder (a suitably ashamed Jonathan Pryce), gold-digging fiancee Anna Chancellor and her bitchy daughter Christina Cole. Enter Amanda's mom, Kelly Preston, and hunky singer Oliver James (with a haircut he'll regret forever) to save the day.

The one redeeming feature in this witless farrago is Colin Firth, who wisely plays the Harrison role totally deadpan. But not even his scene-stealing charisma can rescue this schmaltzfest. Bring a barf bag.