One Night at McCool's Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)August 3rd, 2001
Planet Sick-Boy: http://www.sick-boy.com
"We Put the SIN in Cinema"
© Copyright 2001 Planet Sick-Boy. All Rights Reserved.
(by Grandma Sick-Boy)
So my grandson gives me passes to this new picture One Night at McCool's because the free screening is the same night as that horrible show with those poor prisoners trapped on the island who eat the bugs. "Go," he says, "it's just like Rush-o-Man." Like I'm supposed to know what that means. Honey, when you get to be my age, you don't want to rush anywhere (except maybe the bathroom).
McCool's is a story about a very pretty girl who bewitches several men with her good looks, but leaves each high and dry at the end. The girl, who is quite a simple actress, is played by the daughter of Arrowsmith guitar player Joe Perry. Jewel starts off by tricking a broke bartender named Randy (played by Matt Damon) into thinking she was being raped in the alley behind his bar. But Jewel really just wants to lure him back to his house, so she can call her boyfriend (Andrew Diceclay) in to rob the place. At the last second, Jewel decides she's in love with Randy and shoots her old boyfriend in the head.
But there are other men in the story, too. Most of McCool's is told with flashback from three different men who each fall in love with Jewel. In addition to Randy, there's a lawyer named Carl, whose is played by Paul Buchman. He tells his story to a psychiatrist/country music star and we learn that he likes to wear those pants where your rear end hangs out the back. Roseanne's husband plays the other man, a police officer who thinks Jewel looks like his dead wife, godresthersole. His flashbacks occur as he tells them to a priest, who snacks on the body of Christ as he listens.
As if that wasn't enough excitement for one picture, Kirk Douglas plays a bingo player that Randy hires to kill Jewel when she stops being nice to him. It's nice to see Kirk again, and he looked a lot younger than I thought he would, and such a thick head of hair for a man his age. Everything comes together at the end, which my grandson keeps reminding me to tell you all is just a rip-off of True Romance. There's a very funny joke that involves a wooden Indian that's almost worth the price of admission on its own.
I'll tell you what McCool's reminded me of - that time I went to Pearl's house for dinner, and her goodfornothing son was watching that show The X-Men Files, which I had never seen before. But he wouldn't switch over to Touched By An Angel, so I had no choice but to watch. In the episode, the two FBI people were on a mission in the deep south. Agent Sculder was in love with the local sheriff, but her partner thought he was a dumb rube (he was played by Owen Wilson). As viewers, we got to see the investigation from the different viewpoints of both Agent Sculder and Agent Mully. In one, the sheriff was smart and charming, but in the other, he had rotten teeth and was a moron. It just goes to show you.
Back to McCool's now - I didn't care for all the sex and violence, but thought the acting was pretty good. Like I said, the main actress isn't very talented, but all she had to do here was show off her boobs and bend over a lot. That's not too much to ask. When the picture was over, it said it was made in memory of Stan Seidel, who was the man who wrote the screenplay. One can only assume he died of embarrassment, because he wrote one mean, sick story. My grandson said the director person used to make music video for the NTV, but it seemed like he had a hard time keeping himself focused on things. Maybe he was too busy staring at that girl's boob, too.
1:32 - R for violence, sexuality and language
More on 'One Night at McCool's'...
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.
