JUST THE TICKET
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. United Artists Director: Richard Wenk Writer: Richard Wenk Cast: Andy Garcia, Andie MacDowell, Richard Bradford, Wally Dunn, Laura Harris, Elizabeth Ashley, Andre Blake, Ronald Guttman, Donna Hanover, Ron Leibman, Irene Worth, Joe Frazier
Funny thing. I hang around Broadway most nights every week and I've never been approached by a ticket scalper looking to pawn off tickets to a hot show at a 100% markup. Why is this? Could it be that Mayor Giuliani has locked every one of these guys? Maybe. But someone in the know tells me that I just don't look like the type who fits the demographics. I don't know whether to take that as a compliment. In any case, "Just the Ticket" is about a ticket scalper and his cuddly-lovable business partners who might have been created by Damon Runyon (whose works inspired "Guys and Dolls") but who instead have been constituted by writer-director Richard Wenk. It's also about the scalper's off- again, on-again girl friend, who comes across more like a wary denizen of a small town in South Carolina than a hardened native of the Big Apple. I suppose the main reason to see it is to find out how well Andy Garcia can play a nice guy albeit an irresponsible scamp, and how precious Andie MacDowell can be as the woman who waited eight years for him to grow up and is about to throw in the towel and go to the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris. It provides an energetic outlet for Garcia, who competes quite favorably with Michael J. Fox in the role of a streetwise, fast-talking New Yorker who makes his living hustling tickets for just about any event that requires admission passes--sporting events, theatrical extravaganzas, even in this case a visit by the Pope to a sold-out Yankee Stadium.
Selling tickets at a markup is legal, provided that the sales are made by a licensed brokerage house and the markup is within legal limits, usually ten percent. But there is an underground market governed by sharks who buy up blocks of tickets from their contacts in box offices and sell these hard-to-get passes at huge markups. This is about the only job that Gary Starke (Andy Garcia) feels comfortable with, since he is a rootless New Yorker who has no particularly interest in accumulating property and is just trying to sell enough of his illegal product each day to get by and pay the rent on his Spartan Chelsea digs. That's fine by his friends, especially the oldest of his buddies, Benny (Richard Bradford), a one-time prizefighter who treats Gary like a son and works as his gopher, but it is not acceptable for his girlfriend Linda Paliski Linda is a gourmet cook running a catering business, a woman who has been more than fond of Gary for years now but who has taken on a bland new boyfriend because she cannot see herself spending her life with a guy who never bothered to get even a social security card. When Gary is not dodging the police and dealing with his new ticket-selling street competition, Casino (Andre Blake), he is eagerly courting the conflicted Linda. Linda would like very much to team up with him but has decided to call it quits because his puppy-dog eyes and charming personality are not enough to raise a stable family.
Romantic comedies of this nature are as easy to sell to some people as tickets to the SuperBowl. Others, though, are apprehensive about the genre, fearing yet another picture that is mawkish and manipulative with overly sentimentalized characters and villains who may beat up the heroes, but not convincingly. "Just the Ticket" is unfortunately in the latter category: a glitzy picture featuring photographer Ellen Kuras's sharp New York City lensing and has only one scene that works wonderfully on the funny bone. That one is set in the home of a rich matron, Mrs. Haywood, who hires Linda to cook for her party but refuses to pay her the amount agreed upon. When Linda and Gary trash the kitchen they display high-spirited chemistry between them for the only time in the movie. They roll the roast in a basket of kitty litter, add Tabasco sauce to the Scotch, and fling eggs about the room--all unnoticed by the hostess who by this time is quite inebriated. Otherwise, "Just the Ticket" is formulaic, overly sentimental, and designed principally to make the audience feel good as it leaves the theater.
Rated R. Running Time: 115 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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