Do Me a Favor
Directed by Sondra Locke
Written by Timothy Albaugh and Tag Mendillo
Starring Rosanne Arquette and Devon Gummersall
As Reviewed by James Brundage (MovieKritic2000)
I shouldn't have a television within a hundred yards of me. In fact, I shouldn't have a television at all. I shouldn't flip channels, I shouldn't end up on TMC at 2 AM and discover that there's a movie on that I haven't watched. Because, as soon as I start it, I won't be able to flip away.
The situation is made even worse when you have a movie like Do Me a Favor (which was called Trading Favors when I watched it), where you have a very nice and interesting start followed by a quickly disintegrating plot and suspense. It's like listening to Ravel's "Bolero" in reverse.
Do Me a Favor starts off with characters that are mildly interesting, a nice uncredited cameo by Cuba Gooding, Jr, and a scam in which Alex (Rosanna Arquette) uses her sexuality to get a brand new BMW from two horny teenagers. Taking Lincoln (Devon Gummersall) along for the ride, they begin pulling scams on convenience stores across the state (they give a cut of the stolen money to the cashier, who in turn tells the police that Aryans held the place up, a convenient forgetfulness exists that most stores have video cameras and would record such a robbery.)
From there on in the story heads to the road and the quality of the movie heads due south, right on to the point of no return. Alex continues pulling scams, and then is revealed to have the sappy motivation of wanting to return home to care for a terminally ill mother. As normal, the once promising film turns sappy and idiotic. I have nothing against films with characters and feelings, but only if those characters and feelings are both realistic and original, not fake and pulled out of a closet. Do Me a Favor contains not one ounce of true originality nor one interesting character. They only seem interesting at the beginning, when it appears that they will be different.
Of course, going along with this motif of being stupid, Lincoln and Alex fall into a romance and then into a state of quasi-love (she lets him cheat on her and she's actually married) and then the movie turns into a complete piece of crap.
Rosanna Arquette, normally able to give have decent performances, manages to completely disappoint me. Devon Gummersall is someone who is definitely going nowhere in Hollywood, not with his acting abilities. Everyone else in the movie seems to immediately sense the bad nature of the film and thus decides to only recite their lines, making the movie worthy of a Razzie.
Do Me a Favor does one other thing that I completely hate. As it nears the end, it has a "plot twist" that is completely predictable, and, as a result, makes a long drawn out ending. This ending seems to try to mimic some intelligence that the rest of the movie is completely devoid of, but fails completely. Instead, like everything else, it merely gets on my nerves.
I have no problem with endings that actually are intelligent, but endings like the one in Do Me a Favor make me want to puke. They are endings that take forever to finish all in the name of making the movie seem smart. Some critics may be willing to give a pity vote to a movie because it ends in relatively the same fashion that it began, but I won't. If a movie is like Do Me a Favor and tries to act smart without having a brain, it will only annoy me more.
Please, makers of this film, do me a favor and don't do another one.
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