Big Trouble Review
by David N. Butterworth (dnb AT dca DOT net)April 9th, 2002
BIG TROUBLE
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2002 David N. Butterworth
**1/2 (out of ****)
Take Tim Allen, a super soaker squirt gun, the director of "Get Shorty," a Carl Hiassen-styled Dave Barry novel, "Get Shorty"'s Rene Russo, a nuclear device that looks like a garbage disposal, Dennis Farina reprising his "Get Shorty" tough guy role, a hallucinogenic venom-spraying toad, Stanley Tucci sucking on an Hispanic maid's toes, "Get Shorty"'s Miami setting, Tom Sizemore with a panty on his head, FritosŪ, Jason Lee munching on them incessantly, and a goat, and you've got a whole heck of a lot of trouble. "Big Trouble."
Like "Get Shorty," that inventive 1995 John Travolta flick based on an Elmore Leonard novel, "Big Trouble" is wild and wacky and thoroughly entertaining. It's not as good as "'Shorty" but it sure tries its damndest to be (and every now and again it succeeds, winningly).
Originally slated for an October 2001 release, the film was quickly pulled from distribution following the events of September 11th. That's largely because of its central plot motif of a nuclear bomb being successfully smuggled onto an airplane. "Big Trouble" is not so much a comedy about terrorism, per se, and who knows if we're really ready for that on this kind of madcap scale, but a colorful and creative farce about a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist turned ad man (Allen, typically strong here) who unwittingly becomes involved with some bad sorts when his son... Well, the plot doesn't so much matter as do the situations and the humor that director Barry ("Men in Black" and the upcoming "Men in Black II") Sonnenfeld manages to draw from them.
"Big Trouble" might have worked a little better with the mania cranked up a few notches. That's a strange thing to say about a movie that's pretty manic to begin with but it just doesn't move as quickly as it might and you feel the need for it to hit those hysteria levels more often than it does. The dialogue is pretty much lifted straight from humorist Barry's pages, and Rene Russo looks great as a blonde, once again enlivening anything she's in (whether it be clothes or the movie itself!).
Speaking of Russo the cast is uniformly great. Ben Foster and Zooey Deschanel play the kids whose high school game of "killer" starts the turbulent events in motion. Also pretty terrific are Janeane Garofalo and Patrick Warburton (David Puddy on "Seinfeld," a role with which he'll forever be associated) as Miami's finest who have more than their hands full putting up with Tucci's foaming at the mouth.
Sonnenfeld's film lurches all over the place but there's so much going on, and so many great performers to watch that its slipshod pacing, constant crudeness, and missed opportunities don't seem to matter. If you go in expecting another "Get Shorty" you'll be disappointed. But if you're looking for a fun time at the movies then "Big Trouble" is definitely the ticket.
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David N. Butterworth
dnb@dca.net
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
