My Giant (1998)
Director: Michael Lehmann Cast: Billy Crystal, Gheorghe Muresan, Kathleen Quinlan, Zane Carney, Steven Seagal, Joss Ackland Screenplay: David Seltzer Producers: Billy Crystal, Peter Schindler Runtime: 1:37 US Distribution: Columbia Rated PG: language, mild violence, crude humor
By Nathaniel R. Atcheson (nate@pyramid.net)
If there's one thing I just can't stand, it's a film that oozes with sentimentality. Here's a note to all film makers: films are more effective when the emotions of the characters speak for themselves. Swelling, saddening music is not a good way to tell us that the people in the film are unhappy, and that the situation is hopeless. Alas, My Giant is a film that uses manipulative sentimentality so frequently and with such high intensity that I forgot as I watched it that there are other ways of getting audience members choked up.
What reminded me was that I wasn't choked up, or even the slightest bit moved, for that matter. My Giant is a forced, contrived, and conspicuously un-cute (I detest the word "cute" but I've chosen to use it because the makers clearly wanted to create a "cute" film here). It takes a premise that might have been interesting (I liked the preview), and bogs it down with endless plot turns and cliches, all of which are intended to get some kind of easy emotional rise from the audience. Maybe it will work for some people. It didn't work for me.
Billy Crystal plays Sam Cayman, an agent who, at the beginning of the film, is in Romania. He's in Romania because the kid actor he made famous is doing a film. The screenplay has him in Romania so he can get fired, get in a car accident, and get saved by an enormous individual who stands almost eight feet tall. His name is Max (Gheorghe Muresan), and Sam thinks he'd be a great movie star because of his size.
Subplots are as follows: Sam has a son and a wife (Kathleen Quinlan), and he's never around for them, so they move to Chicago. Max is in love with a woman named Lilianna who moved away from Romania twenty years before the film begins. Sam convinces Max to go back to America with him so they can make lots of money, and so their various subplots can all be resolved. Sam is broke. Max is dying. Pass the kleenex.
My Giant, as a comedy, is only moderately funny. It has its moments, the best of which features Steven Seagal making fun of himself. In one great scene, Sam gets his son on the phone to talk to Seagal; of course, his son doesn't believe that he's actually speaking to Seagal, and he goes off about how bad of an actor he is (I would quote the line I like but it would probably lose its effect).
Crystal is always entertaining, and he has a few good lines here (some of which are subtle throwaways that many will miss entirely); often, however, he's countered by a slew of jokes that aren't funny, and cause an involuntary rolling of the eyes. Muresan is kind of fun to watch, but he just can't act very well. Quinlan, on the other hand, is a great actress who needs to get a role that shows off her talents. She was underused last year in both Event Horizon and Breakdown, but at least in those films she had moments in which she could show us her stuff. Here, the best thing she gets to do is fake a Romanian accent.
All of these disappointing ingredients create a film that, for much of its running time, is simply mediocre. As My Giant lumbers to its inevitable conclusion, however, director Michael Lehmann (who did a great job directing the underrated Hudson Hawk) and scriptwriter David Seltzer pile on every cliche imaginable, each one intended specifically to pull at our heartstrings. Sam's multiple engagements with his family are all completely hackneyed (how about a main character who has a healthy relationship with his family?). Later, it turns out the entire story is supposed to be a great big metaphor signifying Sam's reunion with his family. And some people might think that what Sam does for Max towards the end is a valiant thing, but I had a few morality problems with it (and I apologize for being vague).
It's icky. It drips with gooey, wannabe human emotions. My Giant could have been a straightforward and funny family film. More importantly, it could have been moving on a level far deeper than it is. Instead, it's a complicated, overlong, and under-engaging film that elicits too few laughs and strives for superficial tears. And since it left me feeling completely unmoved, I stand by my position that sentimentality is evil and will ultimately destroy the world.
*1/2 out of **** (3/10, D)
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Nathaniel R. Atcheson
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