Home Fries Review
by Bill Chambers (wchamber AT netcom DOT ca)October 13th, 1998
HOME FRIES * (out of four)
-a review by Bill Chambers ([email protected])
[For past reviews, bi-weekly trivia, etc., visit
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starring Drew Barrymore, Luke Wilson, Jake Busey, Catherine O’Hara screenplay by Vince Gilligan
directed by Dean Parisot
Note to screenwriters and self: when you hit the big time, and the studios come knocking for those scripts that are sitting in your bottom drawer, tell ‘em all to hit the road. Gilligan wrote the arbitrarily-titled HOME FRIES ten years ago; it was shelved until he found success as one of "The took a second look at Gilligan’s "comedy" — they read it again wearing rose-tinted glasses.
Drew stars as Sally, a dim (but sweet), pregnant waitress at a small town burger joint located somewhere in the Southern United States. The father of her child is dead, the victim of a severe heart attack brought on by sadistic torture from his two stepsons — these flyboys scared him with their low-flying helicopter. Dorian (Wilson) and Angus (Busey) were getting even for his philandering ways on behalf of their anguished mother (O’Hara). Trouble is, Sally picked up some interference on her drive-thru headset, and Angus worries she may have heard conversations that took place in the helicopter prior to the accidental killing. So Dorian goes undercover as a burger-flipper; before you can say "with cheese" he falls for the mother-to-be. Too bad Mom and Angus have homicidal plans for Sally.
Does this sound like a movie you want to see?
Without a doubt, the best thing about HOME FRIES is Barrymore; at the risk of sounding sexist, she’s never looked better than here, as a curly redhead with twinkling eyes. She is winning in a role that requires her to do absolutely nothing except look apple-cheek cute and gawk at Wilson, her real-life boyfriend. But the plot and the situations are so off-putting that nothing could save it. This movie desperately wants to get mentioned in the same breath as the Coen brothers, but HOME FRIES’ brand of laboured hipness would be foreign to geniuses like Ethan and Joel. It’s Raising Arizona without babies, without charm, without laughs, without human characters, and without intelligence; worst of all, it’s creepy. What’s funny about threatening to gun down a pregnant woman with a machine gun? (Unless the woman in question is a Spice Girl.)
Take out the helicopters, the quasi-incestuous relationship between the mother and her sons (it is absolutely illogical, within the movie’s framework, that Dorian still lives with his mother and brother), and the scenes of murder (attempted and otherwise), and what are you left with? The story of a single woman with child who works at a fast food joint (but dreams of becoming a country singer). That could turn out to be the most boring movie ever made, but it’d be better than HOME FRIES.
-October, 1998
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.
