Warning: may be some spoilers and this does not paint a pretty picture of this film!
There are some films that are so inept, so misguided, so void of anything worth praising, that you wonder how it got so bad. Was this film good on paper? Did it look funny at the time? I don't know. I'm not even sure if it is possible for this film to look good in any form. I was intrigued by the trailer, it looked damn funny and the principal players in the film are all actors that I like. Amanda Peet has a great resume of smaller films such as Body Shots, Playing By Heart, Whipped and She's The One. All films that I loved. Jack Black thrilled me with his comic genius in High Fidelity. Steve Zahn was irritatingly likable in Out of Sight and of course Jason Biggs was awesome in American Pie. Hey, I even admire a lot of Neil Diamonds music and I am one of the few people that liked The Jazz Singer. So how did this movie get so bad? That is simple. It starts with making Judith ( Amanda Peet ) such a bitch! Seriously, that is all that did it for me. Not to mention the fact that the film wasn't funny but when you have a film that is predicated on showing how one friend falls madly in love with a woman and abandons his friends, you had better give a good reason as to why he is expunging himself from his friends of 20 years. You can't just have a hot chick come into one man's life reason enough to turn it upside down. There has to be reasons. This film doesn't give any reasons.
Jason Biggs plays Darren Silverman as a romantic at heart. His two best friends are apparent losers that do nothing in life except party and listen to Neil Diamond songs. The three also have a Neil Diamond cover band. They are close buds. Then one day, Judith walks into a bar. She is beautiful but crass and rude. Eventually her and Darren hook up and he is in love with her. He falls in love with her because she makes him masturbate instead of making love to her. She makes him abandon his friends of 20 years, she forces him to quite the band that he loves, she makes him take relationship counseling, she orders him around, she makes him wear a beeper so that she can have him at her beck and call, she tells his friends that Darren is her puppet and that she is the puppet master, she tells him what he can drink on the very first day that she meets him and she makes him burn all of his Neil Diamond records. There is no growth of this woman into the mind control freak that she is. She is just a bitch from the moment that Darren lays eyes on her. How could anyone fall for someone like that? I know many guys that have been in love with many different beautiful woman but not one of them has ever been as nasty as Judith is and hence not one guys has ever had to live his life like he is in a convent.
Another problem with the film is the lack of comedy. As I said earlier, Black and Zahn have shown before that they are plenty capable of comedy. But as much as they try here, it falls flat. I don't think that is their fault, it is the script that they are working with. Black has a few parts that look as if they are going to be funny but you are waiting for a payoff that never comes.
Saving Silverman is one of the worst movies I have seen in about a year. There was a romance that came out last year called Here On Earth starring Biggs' American Pie buddy Chris Klein and Leeleeleelee Sobieski that was so bad and so inept that I measure all bad films against that one. While this one isn't quite as bad, it is close. I wonder if this is a pattern with the boys from American Pie. Are they all going to make sucky movies for quite some time? If these two films are any sort of barometer for the hopeful success they are praying for, things don't look to good.
There is one plus for the film. Amanda Detmer looks good. That is it.
1 out of 10-- half being for Detmer and the other half because it wasn't as bad as Here One Earth.
There are some films that are so inept, so misguided, so void of anything worth praising, that you wonder how it got so bad. Was this film good on paper? Did it look funny at the time? I don't know. I'm not even sure if it is possible for this film to look good in any form. I was intrigued by the trailer, it looked damn funny and the principal players in the film are all actors that I like. Amanda Peet has a great resume of smaller films such as Body Shots, Playing By Heart, Whipped and She's The One. All films that I loved. Jack Black thrilled me with his comic genius in High Fidelity. Steve Zahn was irritatingly likable in Out of Sight and of course Jason Biggs was awesome in American Pie. Hey, I even admire a lot of Neil Diamonds music and I am one of the few people that liked The Jazz Singer. So how did this movie get so bad? That is simple. It starts with making Judith ( Amanda Peet ) such a bitch! Seriously, that is all that did it for me. Not to mention the fact that the film wasn't funny but when you have a film that is predicated on showing how one friend falls madly in love with a woman and abandons his friends, you had better give a good reason as to why he is expunging himself from his friends of 20 years. You can't just have a hot chick come into one man's life reason enough to turn it upside down. There has to be reasons. This film doesn't give any reasons.
Jason Biggs plays Darren Silverman as a romantic at heart. His two best friends are apparent losers that do nothing in life except party and listen to Neil Diamond songs. The three also have a Neil Diamond cover band. They are close buds. Then one day, Judith walks into a bar. She is beautiful but crass and rude. Eventually her and Darren hook up and he is in love with her. He falls in love with her because she makes him masturbate instead of making love to her. She makes him abandon his friends of 20 years, she forces him to quite the band that he loves, she makes him take relationship counseling, she orders him around, she makes him wear a beeper so that she can have him at her beck and call, she tells his friends that Darren is her puppet and that she is the puppet master, she tells him what he can drink on the very first day that she meets him and she makes him burn all of his Neil Diamond records. There is no growth of this woman into the mind control freak that she is. She is just a bitch from the moment that Darren lays eyes on her. How could anyone fall for someone like that? I know many guys that have been in love with many different beautiful woman but not one of them has ever been as nasty as Judith is and hence not one guys has ever had to live his life like he is in a convent.
Another problem with the film is the lack of comedy. As I said earlier, Black and Zahn have shown before that they are plenty capable of comedy. But as much as they try here, it falls flat. I don't think that is their fault, it is the script that they are working with. Black has a few parts that look as if they are going to be funny but you are waiting for a payoff that never comes.
Saving Silverman is one of the worst movies I have seen in about a year. There was a romance that came out last year called Here On Earth starring Biggs' American Pie buddy Chris Klein and Leeleeleelee Sobieski that was so bad and so inept that I measure all bad films against that one. While this one isn't quite as bad, it is close. I wonder if this is a pattern with the boys from American Pie. Are they all going to make sucky movies for quite some time? If these two films are any sort of barometer for the hopeful success they are praying for, things don't look to good.
There is one plus for the film. Amanda Detmer looks good. That is it.
1 out of 10-- half being for Detmer and the other half because it wasn't as bad as Here One Earth.