Most Wanted (1997) 1/2 * A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp Copyright 1998 by Serdar Yegulalp
CAPSULE: Trashy, insanely stupid Keenan Ivory Wayans vehicle. The title is exactly the obverse of what it should be.
MOST WANTED is a stupid and incompetent movie that ineptly mixes-and-matches several other genres, and come up with cold porridge. We get political conspiracy, the Death Row Secret Team, a journalist looking for a hot story, and God knows what else. Jon Voight in a general's outfit, too, but the movie is inept on so many levels that I was snickering at the sight of him by the twenty-minute mark.
The movie makes its foolishness plain right away. Sgt. James Dunn (Wayans), court-martialed for a bit of Gulf War righteousness that would not have even made it to court-martial in any other movie, is sentenced to die. He's yanked off death row at the behest of Lt. Col. Grant Casey (Voight), who wants to assemble a top-secret special ops squad. Since Dunn is legally dead, he makes a perfect candidate. Unfortunately, the first mission he's on turns out to be a covert assassination of the First Lady, and he's framed for the murder. However, there's a videotape of the whole thing, and so off he goes after it. All of this is over- and under-scored by a conspiracy plot that's both implausible and painfully convoluted. We also get yet another confirmation of the character-economy law -- the one person who just seems to be standing around with his thumb in his ear, isn't.
I shy at having to discuss a film this painfully bad in detail, but I'll try. Let's see. Among the ridiculous scenes: a moment where Dunn confronts the woman with the tape, then moves closer to her, murmuring, "Man, I haven't had a piece of *that* in years..." and then reaches for a pizza box behind her. Groan, groan. Even worse is a chase scene -- is that the right word? -- where everyone and his brother recognizes Dunn on the street and starts following him (much to the dismay of traffic all across the city). I wondered if we were looking at an outtake from IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD.
There is *one* good thing in the movie. Exactly one -- no more, no less. It is Paul Sorvino's performance as a CIA man (although they give him an opening scene where he's feeding the ducks, and they have him mouth dialogue that's an utter embarrasement to an actor as good as him). Sorvino has a scene which so far outshines the rest of the movie, in fact, they could have built a whole new story around it. It turns out one of his men is a traitor, and when he learns this, he gives the man a talking-to that has real truth in it, and which almost makes the movie worth sticking it out for to hear. Almost.
syegul@cablehouse.dyn.ml.org
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