Outside Providence *1/2
rated R Miramax Films starring Shawn Hatosy, Alec Baldwin, Amy Smart, George Wendt, Jack Ferver, Jon Abrahams based on the novel by Peter Farrelly written by Peter Farrelly, Michael Corrente, and Bobby Farrelly directed by Michael Corrente
In Michael Corrente's "Outside Providence", the first image we see is that of a boy on his bicycle. Behind him, tied to his bike with a rope, is a kid in a wheelchair, throwing newspapers to people's houses. Tied to the wheelchair is a three-legged dog, limping for his life. We've seen this picture before, now haven't we? If "we" have seen a film by Peter and Bobby Farrelly, then yes, we have.
But then again, the Farrelly brothers' three films("Dumb And Dumber", "Kingpin" and "There's Something About Mary") all had something going for them. A hilarious sense of humor and an aura of unpredictabililty. "Outside Providence", which is based on the "semi-autobiography" of Peter Farrelly, shares neither of these two qualities, and doesn't have much to offer.
Peter Farrelly's alias in the film is Tim Dunphy(Shawn Hatosy), a teenager who lives in 1970's Pawtucket, Rhode Island with his wheelchair-bound little brother and his alcoholic, aggressive father(Alec Baldwin), who refers to Tim as "Dildo". Tim lives a somewhat bored existence in Pawtucket, where he spends his time going to parties and getting high with his friends. However, when he accidentally crashes into a parked police car, he is given no choice but to spend his senior year at Cornwall Academy, a strict co-ed private high school.
Tim makes a few new friends, and manages to break just about every rule the school has. But it isn't until he meets Jane Weston(Amy Smart), the best-looking and perhaps smartest girl in school, that he begins let go and just try to have fun. And of course, through Jane, Tim learns about real love, and starts to do better in school.
"Outside Providence" also relies on a small subplot which has Old Man Dunphy(Alec Baldwin) and some of his buddies sitting around playing cards. In one particular scene, a guy named Joey(George Wendt) admits to being gay, and the guys kick him out of the house. This scene and another awful subplot involving Tim's dead mother make up the dramatic core of the film, which is not good news.
Not only is "Outside Providence" a story we seem to have seen before, it is also a very poorly made film. It's predictable, corny, unfunny and gratuitous. Why do I have a good feeling that the Farrelly brothers were forced into adding a three-legged dog and a barfing scene? Maybe because I took a look at Miramax's marketing push behind the movie.
The acting isn't very good either. Shawn Hatosy and Amy Smart are one-dimensional as the leads, and even a "different" performance by Alec Baldwin, who surprisingly takes a supporting role here, is only marginally good. "Outside Providence", the book by Peter Farrelly, was blasted by critics, so it doesn't surprise me that the Farrelly brothers would be the ones adapting it for the screen.
Being a Farrelly Brothers movie, the movie obviously has some fun scenes, but the film as a whole feels pointless, and without direction, thanks in a large part to first-time director Michael Corrente. Miramax Films has made some very smart moves in the past few years, and financing this piece of recycled trash was not one of them.
a review by Akiva Gottlieb, The Teenage Movie Critic akiva@excite.com http://teenagemoviecritic.8m.com this review is also featured at http://jump.to/moviepage
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews