OUTSIDE PROVIDENCE A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): *
"Retard!"
"Homo!"
If those crude bits of offensive language are all it takes to make you laugh, you may find bits of Michael Corrente's OUTSIDE PROVIDENCE funny. Most of this laughless comedy, written by the director and by THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY's Peter and Bobby Farrelly, only sporadically even attempts to be funny. In the dead spots between the would-be jokes that fall like stones, the story has a semi-serious set of sob stories.
As the obnoxious and clichéd father known as "Old Man Dunphy," Alec Baldwin delivers a starkly abysmal performance. A dad who calls his older son "dildo" for unexplained reasons, he's not exactly warmly loved. His younger son is a "cripple," so you can guess how shamelessly the movie will exploit the boy and his handicap. Old Man Dunphy wants you to feel sorry for him, and the story gives him such stereotypically boorish behavior that there's no chance that you will. "It ain't easy being Ozzie, when you ain't got no Harriet," he whines.
His older son, Timothy Dunphy (Shawn Hatosy), is called Dunph by his friends, who include a guy called Drugs and one called Mousy. Dunph, who is poor and not especially bright, lives with his father outside of Providence, Rhode Island. After he gets into trouble, he is sent off to an expensive boarding school -- where the money comes from isn't explained -- called "Cornwall Academy for Boys." Girls are there too. Don't ask; the movie never bothers to explain.
Leaving home is probably good for him even if the school has a forbidden activities list that seems endless. All of the rules are broken anyway. At least away from home he can avoid his dad and his beer-drinking buddies' poker games full of anti-Semitic, homophobic and generally offensive language and behavior. You'd want to leave home too, if you had a dad like that.
Dunph is a high school senior who believes that Arizona is on the coast -- at least after the Alamo. You don't want to try to follow his logic. Like most of the movie, it isn't worth your time. In fact, if the Farrelly brothers weren't associated with the movie, it would have undoubtedly never been green-lighted for production.
Always on the outlook for redeeming features to pathetic movies, your trusty critic found two this time. Although Richard Crudo (AMERICAN BUFFALO) films the interior scenes with a cheap-looking ugliness, the outside sequences happen mainly in a gorgeous, New England autumn in which the trees are bursting with their radiant fall colors. And, although there isn't a single laugh in the entire picture, the sign "Three-Fingered Freddie's Fireworks" is worth a small grin.
OUTSIDE PROVIDENCE runs 1:42, but will feel much longer. It is rated R for drug usage, sexual references and language and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
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