CANNES -- Mel Brooks tackles a virtually impossible objective in ''Life Stinks,'' shown here Wednesday as an out-of-competition festival ''film surprise.'' As director, co-writer, producer and star, Brooks tries to get guffaws out of such unfunny topics as the homeless, poverty, hunger and street life, and the result is as unamusing as the goal was unwise.
In lieu of the anticipated outcome, Brooks can expect many to use at least one portion of the title when passing out word-of-mouth about the film. Business at best will be light, most of it coming from those attracted to a good, rollicking time based on Brooks' past reputation for movie tomfoolery. And those are the very people who'll be most disappointed.
As with any Brooks movie, all is not a waste by any means. Brooks' penchant for grand fun and silliness shows up several times, and delightfully so, especially in a slap-for-slap scene with Rudy De Luca, the latter playing a vagrant who claims to be J. Paul Getty. There are also choice moments such as one in which Brooks gets accidentally swept into a garbage dumpster, also when he attempts to tap dance for coins and/or clean windshields with a greasy rag, not to mention several other isolated moments of inspired lunacy.
But even when the funnybone is being tickled with a masterful touch, it's hard to find much genuine merriment in the subject matter covered here. Cowboys can be satirized, so can producers, Frankenstein, ''Star Wars, '' ''Vertigo'' and the history of the world. But homelessness and hopelessness are nothing to giggle about. Especially not with the amount of it surrounding us these days.
The film begins as if it's going to be a crackerjack. Brooks (Goddard Bolt) is established as a financial wheeler-dealer, so cold and ruthless he's more than willing to rip out acres of Brazilian rain forests or tear down a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., nursing home, anything if it'll add to his bank balance ($6.4 billion and growing). He owns half of a 2 1/2-mile stretch of downtown Los Angeles slum and wants to buy the other half from crafty rival Jeffrey Tambor (Vance Crasswell). The problem is that Tambor also wants to own 100 percent of the property.
Tambor tricks Brooks into a bet: If the latter can survive in the slums for 30 days without any resources or credit cards, Tambor agrees to forfeit his half of the property. Should Brooks fail, Tambor is to get the deed.
Once the bet is on, the film becomes increasingly serious in spite of itself. Even when situations are sketched with a light touch, things seems much too heavy for the laughs to be more than intermittent at best, since the majority of the scenes are set in such sobering locales as a mission soup kitchen, a rat-infested side street, an overcrowded hospital corridor and other grim dead-ends.
If it was Brooks' desire to let ''Life'' get cynical at times, then that doesn't work either, since too much of the film is done with tongue-in-cheek for the audience to believe there's an underlying message.
As a performer, Brooks is as good as writer Brooks and director Brooks allow him to be. Leslie Ann Warren (Molly) has some nice moments as a hostile vagrant who eventually mellows. She ends up as Brooks' wife. Warren is particularly shining in a golden routine with Brooks, dancing in a warehouse, a la Fred and Ginger, to the tune of Cole Porter's ''Easy to Love.'' (Her terpsing comes as a vivid reminder that Warren began her career as a dancer; she's obviously kept up her training.)
The rest of the cast delivers well in formula roles, especially Tambor as the villain of the piece, Stuart Pankin (Pritchard) as an unreliable lawyer, Teddy Wilson (Fumes) and Howard Morris (Sailor) as down-and-outers and De Luca as the loony.
Peter Larkin's production design is uncomfortably convincing -- you wouldn't want to live there -- and Mary Malin's costumes are also just right -- you wouldn't want to wear 'em. Music by John Morris and editing by David Rawlins properly support the subject.
Bottom line: Tough sledding ahead. ''Life'' is set for a July 26 release in the U.S. via MGM/Pathe; 20th Century Fox is distributing the Brooksfilm overseas.
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
In lieu of the anticipated outcome, Brooks can expect many to use at least one portion of the title when passing out word-of-mouth about the film. Business at best will be light, most of it coming from those attracted to a good, rollicking time based on Brooks' past reputation for movie tomfoolery. And those are the very people who'll be most disappointed.
As with any Brooks movie, all is not a waste by any means. Brooks' penchant for grand fun and silliness shows up several times, and delightfully so, especially in a slap-for-slap scene with Rudy De Luca, the latter playing a vagrant who claims to be J. Paul Getty. There are also choice moments such as one in which Brooks gets accidentally swept into a garbage dumpster, also when he attempts to tap dance for coins and/or clean windshields with a greasy rag, not to mention several other isolated moments of inspired lunacy.
But even when the funnybone is being tickled with a masterful touch, it's hard to find much genuine merriment in the subject matter covered here. Cowboys can be satirized, so can producers, Frankenstein, ''Star Wars, '' ''Vertigo'' and the history of the world. But homelessness and hopelessness are nothing to giggle about. Especially not with the amount of it surrounding us these days.
The film begins as if it's going to be a crackerjack. Brooks (Goddard Bolt) is established as a financial wheeler-dealer, so cold and ruthless he's more than willing to rip out acres of Brazilian rain forests or tear down a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., nursing home, anything if it'll add to his bank balance ($6.4 billion and growing). He owns half of a 2 1/2-mile stretch of downtown Los Angeles slum and wants to buy the other half from crafty rival Jeffrey Tambor (Vance Crasswell). The problem is that Tambor also wants to own 100 percent of the property.
Tambor tricks Brooks into a bet: If the latter can survive in the slums for 30 days without any resources or credit cards, Tambor agrees to forfeit his half of the property. Should Brooks fail, Tambor is to get the deed.
Once the bet is on, the film becomes increasingly serious in spite of itself. Even when situations are sketched with a light touch, things seems much too heavy for the laughs to be more than intermittent at best, since the majority of the scenes are set in such sobering locales as a mission soup kitchen, a rat-infested side street, an overcrowded hospital corridor and other grim dead-ends.
If it was Brooks' desire to let ''Life'' get cynical at times, then that doesn't work either, since too much of the film is done with tongue-in-cheek for the audience to believe there's an underlying message.
As a performer, Brooks is as good as writer Brooks and director Brooks allow him to be. Leslie Ann Warren (Molly) has some nice moments as a hostile vagrant who eventually mellows. She ends up as Brooks' wife. Warren is particularly shining in a golden routine with Brooks, dancing in a warehouse, a la Fred and Ginger, to the tune of Cole Porter's ''Easy to Love.'' (Her terpsing comes as a vivid reminder that Warren began her career as a dancer; she's obviously kept up her training.)
The rest of the cast delivers well in formula roles, especially Tambor as the villain of the piece, Stuart Pankin (Pritchard) as an unreliable lawyer, Teddy Wilson (Fumes) and Howard Morris (Sailor) as down-and-outers and De Luca as the loony.
Peter Larkin's production design is uncomfortably convincing -- you wouldn't want to live there -- and Mary Malin's costumes are also just right -- you wouldn't want to wear 'em. Music by John Morris and editing by David Rawlins properly support the subject.
Bottom line: Tough sledding ahead. ''Life'' is set for a July 26 release in the U.S. via MGM/Pathe; 20th Century Fox is distributing the Brooksfilm overseas.
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 5/16/1991
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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