Big Trouble, Small Misery

Most movies when they are released on DVD these days feature audio commentaries in which you get to listen to the director of the film explain how he/she made it. Big Trouble should be the first film to feature an apology commentary. Yes, it should have one separate audio track that plays over the entire film in which director Barry Sonnenfeld issues formal apologies to his audience, his cast, and humanity in general for turning in such a depressingly unfunny movie.

Big Trouble may be the first film I have ever seen in which I actually rooted for a nuclear warhead (which factors prominently into the movie's brand of "screwball" comedy) to kill all of the people in the movie. I wanted to put them out of their misery, and I didn't care if it meant the total annihilation of most of South Florida where the movie is set.

It has been a long time since I've seen a movie waste as much talent as Big Trouble does. This is one of those madcap comedies that assembles a gigantic cast of recognizable faces, but gives them nothing funny to do. The comedy desperation in this film is palpable, and that shocked me considering the talent involved. Sonnenfeld, after all, is the director of such great flicks as Men in Black, Addams Family, and Get Shorty. He must have hit up every single major and minor Hollywood star who ever owed him a favor to appear in this mess. Here is just a partial roster of talent who appear: Tim Allen, Rene Russo, Dennis Farina, Janeane Garofolo, Jason Lee, Stanley Tucci, Tom Sizemore, Omar Epps, Johnny Knoxville, and Heavy D.

Big Trouble is screwball, alright. The movie screwed me, and I felt like bawling afterwards.

Big Trouble uses the Biblical story of Noah and his ark full of animals as a jumping-off point to tell the overlapping story of how a suitcase concealing a nuclear bomb brings together a menagerie of oddball characters. Everything happens in twos in the film. There is the divorced former journalist (Allen) and the lonely housewife (Russo). Then, there are the two idiot crooks (Sizemore and Knoxville), the two professional hitmen (Farina and Jack Kehler), the two FBI agents (Epps and Heavy D), the two teenage sweethearts (Ben Foster and Zooey Deschanel), the two cops (Garofalo and Patrick Warburton), and the homeless guy and the cute maid who loves him (Lee and Sofia Vergara).

There is one really big problem with Big Trouble. It is NOT funny! I laughed maybe three times during this movie. Once when the two crooks--in an effort to conceal their identity--put sweaters over their faces that were so thick, they couldn't even see who they were robbing. Second, I laughed when Stanley Tucci's foul-mouthed millionaire accidentally got sprayed with hallucinogenic toad venom and started imagining his dog with Martha Stewart's head on its torso. Third, I started to giggle quite hard late in the film as . . . oh, wait, sorry. At that point, I was laughing at a joke a friend of mine told me a week ago. My mind was wandering badly at that point.

Structurally, Big Trouble is quite impressive in how it gets all of its players into the action through a series of coincidences and interconnected hijinks. The movie has a nice flow to it, and at under 90 minutes, it never becomes overly tedious. But Big Trouble so relentlessly rips off the style, the pace, and even the music of Sonnenfeld's great Get Shorty from 1995, that it's almost criminal.

The cast is pretty much just out there winging it. Farina rips off his Bones Barboni character from Shorty and his Jimmy Serrano gangster from Midnight Run. He has some clever moments. I liked how he got a table full of tough guys to put out their cigars in a seafood restaurant. But for the most part, he's just repeating characters he's done better in the past. Allen goes from being a disgraced writer to an unlikely action hero as if he is some nerd journalist's idealized vision of himself (the movie is based on a Dave Barry book). Russo is just a shrieking, vamping mess. Lee (who almost always is funny in a movie) spends most of the movie looking like he is recovering from a magic mushroom weekend with Jason Mewes. And Tucci just flat-out embarrasses himself with his ugly turn as a corrupt executive, whose illegal business dealings put the main plot in motion. A scene where the former Golden Globe award winner is required to lick the toes and then suck the feet of his Peruvian maid is just humiliating.

Stan, did you need the money that bad?

For months now, Big Trouble has garnered headlines because it was pulled from its September 2001 release date due to the movie's climax that involves the two crooks sneaking two hostages, a gun, and that aforementioned nuclear bomb past the ridiculously inept airport security in Miami. These scenes are quite awkward post-9/11, and they would not have been any funnier pre-9/11.

Yet, still, I will buy the DVD of this movie when it comes out. Why? Well, here's the thing. I am pretty sure I am gonna live a fairly long life. I have very few fears, but the one thing that scares the crap out of me still is death. And I won't die one of those nice Queen Mother deaths either, where I pass away peacefully in my sleep with my loved ones at my side weeping. Oh, no. I know I'll be wide awake, cursing the Grim Reaper as he comes for me. When that hour arrives, I will want my busty, well-paid Third World nurse Consuela to pop Big Trouble into the DVD player for me. After watching 30 or 40 minutes (apology commentary turned off, of course), I will no longer fear death. I will welcome it. I will embrace that Reaper for the old friend that he is, come to rescue me. I will nestle myself in his arms, as he whisks me off to my final reward. That reward will be that great multiplex in the sky where movies like Big Trouble never ever play.

Of course, the opposite would be...

Big Trouble is rated PG-13 for language, crude humor, sex-related material, and the sight of Puddy from Seinfeld running bare-assed through Miami International Airport.

DVD ALERT: To cleanse my palette, I went home after my recent Big Trouble preview screening and popped in the awesome, new DVD version of The Usual Suspects, which I named the Best Film of 1995. This is more than just a twist movie, folks (although it features one of the greatest twist endings in film history). I have seen The Usual Suspects six times now, and I always find something new each time I watch it. It's one of those movies that work on different levels each time you see it.

This new double-disc set (there is an older single-disc version available) features everything from director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie's original audio commentary (hilarious, insightful, unapologetic, and still one of the best ever recorded), another brand-new commentary from the film's editor, four deleted scenes, several new behind-the-scenes featurettes, and a surprisingly raw gag reel. I love this movie. It is one of my 10 favorite movies of all time. It has one of the most clever, witty, and efficient scripts ever and awesome performances from Oscar winner Kevin Spacey, Benicio Del Toro, Chazz Palminteri, and Gabriel Byrne. Singer even gets a good performance out of one of the lesser Baldwin brothers (Stephen, in this case).

A must buy!

And for those now in a baseball mood, check out the excellent new Bull Durham two-disc set. The audio commentary with Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins is quite good, but I was disappointed that director Ron Shelton didn't see fit to include any deleted or alternate scenes (which Costner and Robbins talk about quite a bit on their commentary track).