THAT FRIEND is that sort of movie.
Henry and his girlfriend go to Palm Springs for a romantic weekend but find things turned upside down when Paul, Henry's obnoxious party animal friend tags along and causes endless trouble.
How you react to this film is going to be determined by how you react to some one loud and obnoxious bulldozing his weaker friend. Its the Abbott and Costello formula on steroids and illicit substances. We've been here before any number of times and this is simply another go at one friend wrecking the life of his bestie.
The problem for me with the whole thing is Paul is less a character and force of nature. Yes people behave like he does, but at a certain point he stops getting invited to the parties and people just throw him out. Paul stands out like an adult in a bunch of kidendergartners. He is not like anyone else in the film. Why is he there? I understand that he is friends with Henry, largely because he is the only one who will put up with him, but at the same time why does Henry's girlfriend allow him to be around? The dynamic never rings true. Yea, it's a classic comedy trope, but it never is remotely real because Paul is just so out there. I tired of him early and stopped caring.
The problem is that because I stopped caring about Paul, I stopped caring about Henry and his girlfriend and everyone on screen. Since the one thing that the filmmakers are holding out as central is not worth looking at the rest of the film withered and died.
An uninvolving miss
No comments:
Post a Comment