HOME FRIES (director: Dean Parisot; screenwriter: Vince Gilligan; cinematographer: Jerzy Zielinsky; cast: Drew Barrymore (Sally), Catherine O'Hara (Mrs. Lever), Luke Wilson (Dorian), Jake Busey (Angus), Shelley Duvall (Mrs. Jackson), Chris Ellis (Henry Lever), Lanny Flaherty (Red), 1998)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A screwball comedy that is conceptually funny but the more ridiculous it gets as the story picks up its pace the less funny it seems. It never has an edge to it, therefore it seems more like a sitcom than a comedy/drama. Drama and characterization are thrown out the window, and contrivances rule the day... which allow the home fries to become too tasteless to enjoy.
Drew Barrymore as the not too swift red-headed Sally, the girl with a golden heart, who works in a small-town Texas hamburger fast-food place, is pregnant and falls for the clean-cut stepson, Dorian (Luke), of the married man (Chris Ellis) who fathered her unborn child. Dorian and his maniacal bother Angus (Busey) are helicopter Air National Guard pilots who attempt to scare their cheating stepfather for their mother's (Catherine O'Hara) sake, but go too far in scaring him and cause him to have a heart attack when they hover over his car in their helicopter and force him to flee the car on a darkened country road. The only problem with the perfect murder, is that the obedient sons are afraid that the voices they heard on their helicopter's radio might be witnesses to the murder. They figure out that those voices came from the hamburger place, so Dorian gets a job there in order to see what any one there knows about the murder, which the police are not even suspicious of.
Sally and her family are made to appear like caricatures from the Beverly Hillbillies, living in a run-down shack, with a father (Flaherty) who is a loud- mouth drunkard with pangs of violence. The film touches bases with the Oedipal problem, sibling favoritism, normalcy, a dysfunctional family, and violence in rural areas. It hones in on the life of fast food workers and the low quality of life in the small town, hoping to make a satire on that lifestyle. But the film just can't get above the absurdity of its bizarre tale to say much more about why everyone is so screwed up or make the romance between the shy Dorian (the good brother) and Sally feel like it belongs in the film. These two are not believable as lovers, as I saw no sparks flying from them. Also the murder plot is just not that funny, and when it becomes more involved, it just becomes a sick joke that goes on for too long; and, the film ends with a one-too many helicopter scene that couldn't be more ridiculous. The film had all the hints of going somewhere in its opening premise, but it seemed to get stuck, not knowing how to tell a story about what the film really should have been about, the quest of Dorian and Sally for a normal life despite their dysfunctional up-bringing. I grew weary of the manipulative mother acting out her revenge fantasies against a husband who cheated on her and her sons trying to be obedient to her in their own ways. Being a weirdo does not make one necessarily an interesting character. That is a lesson that this first-time director should take away from this failed effort at dark humor.
It should be mentioned that there was one appetizing scene in the movie, as Dorian escorts Sally to Lamaze class and we see them go through those exercises; it is still a good scene even if it is still not clear why he does so. I just had the feeling he felt sorry for her, rather than that he was in love with her, as I presume the director wanted us to believe.
This is a film that might please those who frequent fast-food places and don't worry about their cholestral count and indigestion. In other words, the film moved along at a fast pace, there wasn't much to think about, and might be just the thing for those who would consider this a date movie and not be concerned that it didn't deliver a heavier meal. As for me, I try to eat junk food only when I'm stuck on the road and am starving to death. In this case, since I wasn't stuck on the road, my excuse for eating this junk food was that I was enticed to try something new they were advertising on the menu, but after tasting it, I felt it was just like the same old stuff they always serve in those places, and I just wasn't hungry enough to appreciate that.
REVIEWED ON 9/17/99 GRADE: C-
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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