The Last Shot (5/10)

By Tony Medley

The titles for this are clever and I enjoyed them. Then the movie started and enjoyment ended.

The problem with one joke movies is that after the joke there’s still a movie you have to sit through. These are 93 looonnnng minutes.

You know the joke. Joe Devine (Alec Baldwin) is a loser who’s an FBI agent whose brother is an FBI bigwig. He devises a sting to nab some crime bosses by faking a movie. He needs someone’s script, so he poses as a producer and gets Seven Schates (Matthew Broderick), a doorman at Grauman’s Chinese theater, who has a script about the Arizona desert and the Grand Canyon, to sign up and not only use his script but direct also.

OK so far. Then, Devine wants to shift the location from Arizona to Providence, Rhode Island to double for things like the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River and the desert (because that’s where the crime bosses are). This is based on a true story. It apparently happened to two guys named Levy and Lewk. If what really happened to them is anything like this movie, it’s amazing Levy and Lewk can walk, talk, and eat without help. Because the scenes where Devine shows Schates a river in Providence to double for the Colorado, while humorous because of Schates’ reaction, is something that could only be believed by someone in a Hollywood movie.

The movie is directed and written by Jeff Nathanson, who wrote the screenplay for Catch Me if You Can (2002), another overly long movie that I didn’t like. This is a film with little humor, little logic, little interest. What an appalling waste of talented actors!

September 23, 2004

The End