Author: iysmall@aol.com (Ron Small)
28 DAYS (2000)
Grade: C
Director: Betty Thomas
Screenplay: Susannah Grant
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Viggo Mortensen, Dominic West, Steve Buscemi, Reni Santoni, Mike O' Malley, Alan Tudyk, Elizabeth Perkins, Azura Skye, Diane Ladd
I tried, I really did. I wanted to feel Sandra's pain. I wanted to be moved, and cry with all the others flanking me in that theatre, but instead, I found myself laughing. I laughed loud and with much derision, I'm ashamed to say. I laughed at the obligatory death scene, the emotional talk between sisters ("I should have helped you with your homework!"), the drunken mother flashbacks (oh, so this how our main character ended up like this), and most of all I laughed at the dopey ending which I won't describe for those saps who choose to ignore my cautionary review (you know who you are). I left the theatre un-moved, but all that laughter did me good. Maybe I was just in a weird mood.
28 DAYS is not a movie I planned to see ever, save for maybe when it would inevitably pop up on pay cable where I catch most of the movies I never plan on seeing (think 8MM, THE CORRUPTER, MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE…think, but don't see).
It came with a trailer that made me gag, and starred Sandra Bullock who seems utterly incapable of choosing a good script. It's directed by Betty Thomas, who managed to make Howard Stern likeable in PRIVATE PARTS, but then again, it's directed by Betty Thomas, the woman who turned DR.DOLITLE into a two hour potty joke (or so I've heard, I could never actually bring myself to sit through yet another supposed Eddie Murphy comeback). Steve Buscemi (who's been MIA ever since he graced the otherwise execrable ARMAGEDDON) is featured prominently in the trailer. I like him a lot. Viggo Mortensen is also in the film, though he's advertised a bit less prominently. Mortensen may be the most talented leading man who has yet to become a leading man. And it was written by Susannah Grant who wrote the cheeky crowd pleaser, ERIN BROCKOVICH.
So, I didn't really want to go, but I was curious (it was this same curiosity that got me into trouble when SHOWGIRLS frolicked into town--curiosity may have killed that damn cat, but in my case, all it ever did was get me to pay good money to see bad movies), and when it received glowing reviews from two critics I regularly pay attention to (Roger Ebert and Owen Gleiberman for those curious) I decided to push my doubts aside, and give Sandra and Betty another chance.
I'm not really sorry that I did. I feel rather indifferent about the whole debacle. It's an improvement over FORCES OF NATURE and HOPE FLOATS (two films I caught on HBO, and just had to turn off because they stunk so badly), but it's not really, you know, good. The script is like a LIFETIME weepie, which is to say that it's well made for a made for TV flick that would air on that particular channel. It isn't, however, well made enough to shell out seven bucks to see. (Or more, if you happen to be unlucky enough to live in New York, a city where not only the mosquitoes are poisonous, but the movies are eight whopping bucks and going higher I hear).
In my review of Grant's other movie, ERIN BROCKOVICH (which she provided the screenplay for), I noted that without the star power of Julia Roberts and the clever Steven Soderbergh at the helm, it would be little more than a passable TV movie. Judging from 28 DAYS, it appears as if Grant is only capable of writing scripts for TV movies (though I certainly wouldn't mind it if she proved me wrong one of these days), so I plead to any LIFETIME execs that may be reading this: please hire this women! Either that or pair her up with a director as bright as Soderbergh. Not that Betty Thomas is horrible, she just isn't distinctive. Which is to say her films are indistinguishable from the rest of the mainstream crap currently stinking up a multiplex near you. Which maybe does mean she's horrible.
While this flick's noxious trailer would have you believe that it's a comedy with hints of drama, there are very few laughs, and plenty of scenes designed to make you ball like Haley Joe Osmet after the little pisher was denied a Golden Globe. 28 DAYS is a very mainstream melodrama about the out of control Gwen (perky Sandra Bullock acting as petulant as she can), an alcoholic who shimmies into her sisters wedding drunk, then causes huge amounts of faux-drama, all while her smarmy British boyfriend, Jasper (Dominic West) chortles about. Our bitter heroine must either go to jail or a rehab clinic. Which would you pick? Well if you saw this clinic you might just want to be thrown in jail. It's the kind of rehab where people sing and interact with farm animals. It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway for the sake of completion) that at first Gwen is very opposed to all this goofiness, then she eventually warms up to it, and everything most likely ends happily. Trust me, I haven't given a thing away.
The drama of alcoholism is presented with some reality, but never to the point where we really become involved in the suffering of it all. Sure we see Bullock scrunch up her nose in pain and all that but we never feel it, and personally I didn't care to. Bullock has made a career out of playing sweet, airy girly-woman, like your bestest pal in the whole world, who just happens to be really hot. She has a freeness about her, a sunshine quality that doesn't seem faked (as, at least for me, it does with Gwyneth Paltrow). Here she is stripped of all that, and her characterization is adequate, but something is missing. She doesn't seem comfortable when she drops the nice-girlness, and I admire her for trying, but this is really a role better suited for someone like Janeane Garofalo, who seems just as bitter as this character requires. (I felt the same thing, only the opposite with Garofalo attempting to play sweet in THE MATCHMAKER).
Viggo Mortension is the sometimes-love interest, a rehabee, with a penchant for unwanted paternity suites. The actor plays the part in a laid back Mathew McConaughey drawl, and makes the most of his nothing-role. Busemi is featured in about three scenes the entire movie, yet he registers more than Bullock did for me. He plays a drug counselor (ex-junkie and alcoholic) with a gentle, quite intelligence. He looks at Bullock with sad, helpful eyes, and we get the feeling that this guy really cares. Others present are third-tier character actors, all equipped with their one identifiable character trait. They're an overly wacky bunch, just the kind of rehab people you'd expect to find in a film by the director of DR. DOLITTLE. One of those quirky souls is Andrea (played by sitcom star Azura Skye), a morose addict whose fate seems obligatory in a movie such as this.
Thomas directs in hand held camera mode as if to announce that she's attempting something grittier than the average Bullock vehicle, but all that grit just paves the way for more cheap pathos. In retrospect I realize it's mighty telling that in Roger Ebert's review he notes: "28 Days is rated PG-13 and might be effective as a cautionary tale for teens". In a sense, that is a lot of what's wrong with the film, it's too damn cautionary. The movie is like an overly moral tale that an ex-rehab clinic might tell to his grand children. It's too damn safe. Even the grittiness eventually leads to saccharine lessons.
http://www.geocities.com/incongruity98 Reeling (Ron Small)
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