Saving Silverman Review

by "John Beachem" (john_beachem AT hotmail DOT com)
February 19th, 2001
SAVING SILVERMAN

Review by John Beachem

* *

Directed by: Dennis Dugan
Written by: Hank Nelken, Greg DePaul

Darren Silverman (Jason Biggs), Wayne (Steve Zahn), and J.D. (Jack Black),
have been friends for years. Silverman's the romantic, chasing down anything
female with mindless abandon; J.D.'s the dunce, more suited to spraying
himself with beer than working a difficult job as a Subway employee; Wayne's
the loyal friend, sticking up for his buddies in his own utterly inept way.
Their friendship is now put to the test when Silverman falls for a
domineering woman named Judith (Amanda Peet). Judith wants to control every
aspect of Silverman's life, and that means getting rid of his friends. Wayne
and J.D. retaliate by kidnapping Judith and trying to set Silverman up with
his old crush, Sandy (Amanda Detmer). Of course, the boys still have to
figure out what to do with Judith, who is tied up in the garage, slowly
turning Wayne and J.D. against each other with clever (read: obvious) mind
games. So they turn to their old high school football coach (R. Lee Emery), incarcerated for killing a ref who made a call he didn't care for, for
advice on how to handle the devious woman. Will Wayne and J.D. save
Silverman? Will Judith escape their clutches? Will this godforsaken movie
never end?

I'm sure the creators of Saving Silverman would have felt a sense of creeping dread had they attended the showing I watched on Friday. They would
have felt this for two reasons: one, the audience was comprised of maybe 10
people (this being opening night in a big movie area); two, of those ten
people, eight of them were the young teens this movie was clearly aimed at
(the other two were myself and an old lady who walked out in the first
twenty minutes), and none of them were laughing. This movie didn't even get
the sort of nervous chuckles the audience at Little Nicky saw fit to grant that piece of tripe. I'm talking about stony silence, broken only by
the occasional yawn or grunt for an hour and a half. I rather wish the
film's producers had been present, since watching them soak their chairs
with sweat would have been far more entertaining than anything happening on
screen. Still, being the softie I am, I feel compelled to say something nice
about the movie, so here goes. It has the minimal number of fart jokes,
Amanda Peet wears low cut dresses, and it's only an hour and a half long. My conscience clear, I will now explain to you why you should avoid this movie
as though it were the latest outbreak of Ebola.

If Amanda Peet doesn't fire her agent at some point before her next movie,
she might as well kiss her career goodbye. After appearing in the atrocious Whipped, and now in the utterly mindless, laughless, helpless, hopeless Saving Silverman, she's used up all currency she earned with her star making turn in The Whole Nine Yards. The next one better be good Miss Peet. One of the few amusing things about this stupid film is the
fact that Jason Biggs' character might be the focus of the movie, but his
character still turns out to be utterly useless. Tempted as I am to blame
this on Biggs himself, I really can't. His performance isn't bad, but no one
could have saved this role. Next up we've got Jack Black. Black was
hilarious in High Fidelity, and he's somewhere on the opposite end of the bell curve this time around. His performance was so annoying that I felt
this weird, stabbing pain in my temples each time the man appeared on
screen. Steve Zahn (Out of Sight) gives the strongest performance of the four main actors, but that's not saying much. R. Lee Ermey (Full
Metal Jacket almost manages to turn his character into, well, something, but the script pulls him down each and every time (though his advice to the
boys on how to handle the kidnapped Judith is rather amusing). Should I
mention Amanda Detmer? Why bother; I'm sure her character in Final Destination left more of an impression on that bus than Miss Detmer
leaves on the audience in Saving Silverman.

Am I being too harsh on modern teen comedies? Is it too much to ask for
jokes which don't revolve around masturbation, turning gay, or (horror of
horrors) butt cheek implants? I'm sure there were a few cries of "yes!" out
there, but I'm hoping the majority of you said you were getting bored with
this garbage as well. I'm sick and tired of gross out jokes; I'm sick and
tired of jokes tailor made to those with IQ's less than their shoe size; and
I'm sick and tired of being told to laugh at people treating each other like garbage. None of this is funny; It never has been, it never will be. Let me
give you a few examples of the sorts of things we're supposed to simply
crack up at in this movie. We see Silverman and friends as little kids
having lunch at school. A little girl beckons to Silverman to come join her,
he cheerfully does so, only to fall flat on his face as the girl's friends
trip him. Wayne leaps to his feet to defend his friend, and the girl beats
him up. That's funny, right? Later, Silverman is on a date with Sandy. He
keeps mentioning Judith's name and scaring Sandy off, so Wayne shows up and
sticks a device on Silverman that will shock him every time he mentions
Judith. The device goes haywire (didn't see that coming) and sets Silverman
to jerking around on the dance floor (didn't see that coming either) while
everyone says "Wow, he's a good dancer." Of course, they say this despite
the fact that his dancing looks more like he's having a heart attack -
clutching his chest and moaning in pain. If either of these scenes sound uproariously funny to you, I'm sure you'll have a blast.

Now, I know I'm in the minority when I say I didn't care for American Pie, but even those of you who enjoyed its brand of frightfully stupid sexual humor have to admit it's responsible for movies like this one. If
Jason Biggs had never shown up, we probably wouldn't have to watch in horror
as the collective IQ of our nation's youth drops point by point, teen movie
by teen movie. While one would hope the lackluster response from my audience
would be a sign the teen movie revolution is coming to end. Alas, before
this humorless descent into hell began, we were granted not three, not four,
but five previews for upcoming teen movies (including one for the insipidly
stupid The Adventures of Joe Dirt). If this is a sign of things to come in the new millenium, we're all in a lot of trouble my friends. Should
I mention the film's soundtrack? Sum it up this way: Neil Diamond, and a few
modern alternative songs. Bet ya didn't see that coming. Saving Silverman runs a long 90 minutes. I'd recommend the film to those of you who laughed at the subtle humor in Whipped and Loser (so subtle it was that 95% of the population didn't get it), and give the film
two out of five stars.

Comments? Send to: johnbeachem@dependentfilms.net

Past reviews can be found at:
http://us.imdb.com/ReviewsBy?John+Beachem

* * * * * - One of the best movies of the year.
* * * * - Great flick, try and catch this one.
* * * - Okay movie, hits and misses.
* * - Pretty bad, see it at your own risk.
* - See this one only if you enjoy pain.
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