One Night at McCool's Review
by David N. Butterworth (dnb AT dca DOT net)November 16th, 2001
ONE NIGHT AT MCCOOL'S
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2001 David N. Butterworth
**1/2 (out of ****)
Imagine a porno movie with no explicit sex scenes (or, perhaps more accurately, a Playboy centerfold video with no nudity) and you pretty much have "One Night at McCool’s."
This sexy comedy features Liv Tyler (as a ruby-lipped temptress named Jewel Valentine) prominently parading around in a multitude of thin, lacy outfits, most of which could pass for underwear. There is barely a scene in the film in which Tyler isn’t displaying her considerable physical charms--she struts and wiggles and jiggles and bends over an awful lot, one minute tucked into a tight red velvet mini-dress, the next minute filling out an even snugger lilac camisole.
The part does not call for much acting, although Ms. Tyler certainly washes a car with great conviction--perhaps you’ve seen the slo-mo, soft-focus scene in the previews in which soap suds and water spray wind up on just about everything but the vehicle!
As the object of three men’s affections (the trio are played by Matt Dillon, Paul Reiser, and John Goodman), Jewel is a femme fatale with the emphasis on femme. How she entered the lives of these hapless schlubs and screwed them over royally is the premise behind "One Night at McCool’s."
Perhaps Tyler took this rather demeaning role in order to work with a strong male supporting cast (none of whom take their clothes off either, although Reiser (from TV’s "Mad About You") does get down and dirty in some kinky black leather gear like a kitten with a whip). It is a strong cast, and the men are all quite good, but that’s probably because they have more material to work with than their sultry co-star.
Reiser plays a self-important lawyer who relates his Jewel-encrusted tale to his very patient shrink (country singer Reba McIntire). Dillon is his cousin Randy, a slightly perplexed bartender who first encounters Jewel when closing up McCool’s one night. Jewel so destroys his life that he winds up hiring a hit man to knock her off (the hired assassin is played by Michael Douglas, who sports a hilarious pompadour in this rare, comedic turn). Rounding out the list, John Goodman appears as Detective Dehling who, like everyone else, falls for Jewel the minute he sets eyes on her. He confesses his story to his parish priest (who insists in knowing every detail of his association with this woman with the dangerous curves).
Written by Stan Seidel and directed by Harald Zwart (who cut his teeth on music videos, surprise surprise), "One Night at McCool’s" is, for all its wanton charms, an odd fish. It’s funny, but lacking the manic overtones of the kind of screwball comedy to which it aspires. It’s got a noir-ish feel to it--the femme fatale, the hired killer, the double-crosses--but the mood is lighter, frothier than that. It teases and it pleases but it never really comes together in any meaningful (or riotous) way.
Except, perhaps, as an exercise in voyeurism.
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David N. Butterworth
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