|
Alphabetic Index
|
Ratings Index
|
Web Resources
|
Alphabetic Index
|
Ratings Index
|
Web Resources
We see no mass of ACLU lawyers running to the hinterlands in their defence, safeguarding their right to toilet bowl planters and multiple junk cars in the front yard as a uniquely American form of free expression. Immortalised on film, sometimes with awards (God's Little Acre), they are our last bastion of out-and-out prejudice, the only domestic sub-culture that hasn't been divested of its ethnic stereotype by the sanctimonious era of political correctness.
Subscribing to the Coen Brothers school of bumpkin-bashing, Home Fries offers up yet another lampoon of trashy, backwater America, where, it blatantly contends, resides an inordinate number of cretinous inbreds and other assorted sick puppies. As sociology the elitist diatribe is inaccurate, let alone shamefully unfair. As comedic farce it flounders in its uncertainties. But the smirky satire definitely has its moments.
When Angus, a dim-witted paranoid portrayed by Jake Busey, and his brother Dorian, a well-intentioned dolt acted by Luke Wilson, are cowed into doing their maniacal mother's bidding, things go topsy-turvy on Tobacco Road. Crazy Mom, played with menacing grasp by Catherine O'Hara in her best screen performance to date, suspects that hubby is stepping out on her (gosh, we wonder why). The malevolent harpy convinces her boys to put a little scare into their libidinous stepfather.
It's quite convenient that the fully-grown siblings who, incidentally, still sleep in bunk beds, are weekend warriors with a $10 million Army helicopter at their disposal. Stalking dear old step dad from the sky as he drives home one night, they whirlybird him into such a tizzy that he dies of a coronary. During the air assault, however, the plot thickens when the pilots hear radio transmissions over their headsets. Control freak Angus later ascertains that the eavesdropping emanated from the neighbourhood Burger-Matic (the local yokels refer to it as -- The Restaurant).
Deferring to older brother's demands, Dorian takes a job at the fast food joint to see if anyone is wise to their unintentionally fatal gambit? There he meets the comely but very pregnant Sally Jackson, played with down home elan by Drew Barrymore, inconsistent Southern drawl notwithstanding. Dorian immediately knows he is smitten with the drive-up window gal. What he doesn't know is that the newest object of his affection was stepfather's concubine. The young man can't even begin to contemplate what his relationship to Sally's imminent offspring will be. Not to mention what deranged Mom might think of sonny boy wooing the cause of her cuckoldry.
An irreverent, partially offbeat comedy of bad manners, in Home Fries practically no one plays by the usually accepted rules of behaviour. The never-ending search for love ultimately dictates how the cast of assorted wackos, neurotics and psychopaths will interact. Of course, director Dean Parisot's interpretation of Vince Gilligan's hit-and-miss script isn't always referring to romantic love. That's just part of it. It is the irrational, psychologically driven sort of love (psychiatrists would call them obsessions or manias) that predominantly flavours this bucolic harangue. Particularly treacherous is insolent Angus's overbearing need to win Mom's approbation, no matter the cost.
Unfortunately, resorting to a traditional, romantic plot line to finally resolve matters is what eventually undermines the film; it dabbles on the edge, squints into the challenging abyss of black comedy, and then scurries to the drab safety of conventional filmmaking. The sexual attitude is antiseptic to a curious fault. A saltier approach could have spiced up the proceedings. Director Parisot keeps things humming along and a game cast imbues the somewhere-in-the-South atmosphere with all manner of idiosyncrasy. But while the screenplay creates a convivial enough 1-2 punch, it just doesn't possess the kind of guffaws necessary for a real comedic knockout.
To create a proper black comedy, it is incumbent upon the filmmaker to temporarily raise the bar on what is and what is not acceptable, at least for the hilarious moment. He or she must identify the line where good taste ends and then cross it with gleefully wicked conviction, risking that any social faux pas will be more than artistically justified by the humorous truth that emerges. That doesn't happen here.
Aside from any number of the aforementioned Coen Brothers' works (Raising Arizona, Barton Fink), a perfect example is Tony Richardson's The Loved One, wherein the institution of death, normally not a subject for levity, takes a very novel drubbing. Merely identifying the outlandish but then failing to sally forth on its premise, it seems director Parisot's movie has erroneously taken a pretentious cue from the fashion world where, this year, the "new black" is grey. Although obviously aspiring to the realm of black comedy, this half-hearted foray falls a grey shade or two short of the mark. While hinting at a more nourishing comedy, Home Fries winds up, alas, only a junk food snack.
|
Alphabetic Index
|
Ratings Index
|
Web Resources