The Bachelor **1/2
Rated on a 4-star scale Screening venue: Odeon (Liverpool City Centre) Released in the UK by Entertainment Distribution on February 18, 2000; certificate 12; 102 minutes; country of origin USA; aspect ratio 1.85:1
Directed by Gary Sinyor; produced by Bing Howenstein, Lloyd Segan. Written by Steve Cohen. Photographed by Simon Archer; edited by Robert M Reitano.
CAST..... Chris O'Donnell..... Jimmie Shannon Renee Zellweger..... Anne Hal Holbrook..... O'Dell James Cromwell..... Priest Artie Lange..... Marco Edward Asner..... Gluckman Peter Ustinov..... Grandfather
Deadlines should almost always be important in thrillers, and never in comedies. Yet screenwriters insist on letting all kinds of plots depend on them; not to provide suspense, because we know Hollywood heroes always get wherever they need to be in the nick of time. Nor to show how the characters react to the pressure, because it's usually just an excuse for gags. Only, I guess, because it's what they were told to do in screenwriting class.
"The Bachelor" is an excellent example, a film with a lot of good ideas that never sits still long enough for any of them to work. It should be a romantic comedy about a young man learning the value of true love, but wastes a lot of time showing him running around trying to beat the clock. He is Jimmie Shannon, the manager of a successful pool-table factory, who is in love with the perks of being affluent, youthful and unmarried.
But Jimmie (Chris O'Donnell) is getting anxious that he may have to give up this lifestyle. Now that almost all of his friends are married, and he's been dating the lovely Anne (Renne Zellweger) for three whole years, it occurs to him that she expects him to follow suit. He tries to pop the question, but obviously his heart's not in it, and Anne becomes so offended that she gets on the first train out of town for time alone with her understanding sister.
Then Jimmie discovers that his recently deceased grandfather (Peter Ustinov) has bequeathed $100million to him on the condition that he gets married by six o'clock on his thirtieth birthday. Wouldn't you know it, this news arrives on the day before, so it's a race against time for Jimmie's friends and lawyers to find Anne. In case they don't, Jimmie must seek out all his other ex-girlfriends to see if any of them are prepared to be his bride.
As he takes this wild journey through his past, which doesn't produce any favourable results, Jimmie of course comes to appreciate how much Anne really means to him. I wish it could mean something to the audience, but in a huge storytelling blunder, the couple's three-year history is spent entirely off-screen. Thus, we've only ever seen them when they've been fighting or awkward with one another, and we have no idea if we like them enough to want them to be united. O'Donnell and Zellweger are both attractive performers -- why aren't we allowed to find out whether or not they have any chemistry together?
Probably because the filmmakers have no confidence in any of their material, and perpetrate disastrous attempts to spice it up. The awkward climax features hundreds of people in expensive set-pieces, but isn't at all exciting or funny. Special guest stars such as Brooke Shields, Mariah Carey and Jennifer Esposito have been brought in to play the ex-girlfriends, but their presence is distracting. Even the beginning of the movie, which features a narration of potentially witty observations about bachelorhood, is ruined by a stupid special-effects accompaniment. Matters are not helped by O'Donnell speaking in a deliberately goofy manner to underline the fact this is a comedy.
It is Ustinov, though, who gives a really embarrassing performance, as a man with unexplained oddities of body language and speech. Hal Holbrook is pretty dreadful too, drifting in and out of an Irish accent, and chain-smoking cigars with the amateurish trepidation of a kid taking his first drag.
Aside from that, "The Bachelor" is an easy-to-watch film that held my attention. The soundtrack is wonderful, the structure is clear, the people and places look good. But all the way through I kept thinking that it could have been better, and wishing it would stop getting side-tracked by gimmicks. I must track down "Seven Chances", the Buster Keaton film it was inspired by. It was made in the 1920s, when they knew how to tell a story straightforwardly.
COPYRIGHT(c) 2000 Ian Waldron-Mantgani Please visit, and encourage others to visit, the UK Critic's website, which is located at http://members.aol.com/ukcritic
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