Thursday, January 29, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: Don't bounce to this

The Big Bounce is a barely amusing Elmore Leonard caper

By Tammy McMahan

Let's rename The Big Bounce "a small jumping-like movement." Director George Armitage's barely amusing adaptation of crime fiction writer Elmore Leonard's novel is an injustice compared with far superior cinematic takes on his writings, such as Stephen Soderbergh's Out of Sight and Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown.

On a picture-perfect Hawaiian island, endearing petty thief Jack Ryan (played by Owen Wilson; and no, Tom Clancy fans, that novelist's Jack Ryan didn't go native and bad) tries to go straight with construction work financed by Ray Ritchie (Gary Sinise), the resident smug, tax-evading kingpin. After Jack and a foreman (Vinnie Jones) get into a bat-swinging tussle, he's fired, but is quickly hired as a handyman by Walter (Morgan Freeman), a seemingly kind local judge who owns bungalows.

As Jack deals with tourists, Ray's bumbling assistant Bob Jr. (Charlie Sheen) and a former partner-in-crime (Gregory Sporleder), he falls for Ray's mistress, Nancy (Sara Foster). This slutty femme fatale gets all bouncy about the prospect of stealing big money from Ray and she's determined to solicit Jack's help for the heist. As the caper takes shape, Jack finds all isn't as it appears.

Bounce evokes a typically Leonardian world of noirish misdeeds and romance. But this version, adapted by Sebastian Gutierrez, is devoid of the well-rounded characters of other films of Leonard's work. While Wilson's Jack is charismatic and fun, the actor is just being himself. Compare Clooney's Jack Foley in Out of Sight and Robert Forster's Max Cherry of Jackie Brown--they're electric, humorous and inspired.

As for the rest of Bounce's cast, they wallow in zero-dimensional characterization. Sinise and Jones are embarrassingly non-sinister. Freeman, Foster and Sheen offer ineffective, mechanical portrayals that are the antitheses of the solid, vivid supporting roles in the Soderbergh and Tarantino films.

So don't be surprised if this lackluster remake (there's a 1969 version starring Ryan O'Neal) is bounced out of theaters real soon.