KICKED IN THE HEAD (director/writer: Matthew Harrison; screenwriter: Kevin Corrigan; cinematographer: John Thomas/Howard Krupa; editor: Michael Berenbaum; cast: Kevin Corrigan (Redmond), Linda Fiorentino (Megan), Michael Rapaport (Stretch), James Woods (Uncle Sam), Lili Taylor (Happy) Burt Young (Jack), Olek Krupa (Borko); Runtime: 97; 1997)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Matthew Harrison's "Kicked in the Head" has its offbeat comical moments but in the end dies from self-indulgence and too much cuteness. Kevin Corrigan wrote a juicy part for himself, but his part never caught fire, in fact, he was the film's weakness. The supporting characters were at least funny when they did their shticks in this rambling, derivative NYC movie, that tried too hard to be offbeat and in the process forgot it would be nice to have a story that made some sense to go with the film.
Kevin is a confused young man named Redmond, whose aimless life we will follow for a few days, as he is in the process of writing the poetical truth in a book about the meaning of life. From time to time, he spews out the childish doggerel he writes in his notebook, which he keeps in his backpack. He has just lost his job and has been evicted from his apartment, which also just happened to burn down, when he meets Uncle Sam (James Woods) in the street. His loser uncle just stole a car and threw a pooch out of it-with one of the running gags throughout, the sightings made of the lost pooch wandering the streets. Another running theme throughout, is the newsreel from Pathe, of the Hindenburg disaster being played, which Corrigan seems to connect with his life and his earnest pursuit of romance.
Sam asks Redmond to deliver a package for him at a subway station, makes fun of Redmond when he tells him he is on a spiritual quest, and tells him to call home -- and to make sure he delivers the package. At the station when he tries to deliver the package, a shootout occurs between the one who steps up for the package and another man, but the gunplay seems more comical than in earnest, and no one gets hit. As a result, Redmond now has the package of cocaine.
The film then goes off on another tangent, as Redmond goes to his best friend's house, Stretch (Michael Rapaport) to crash. He is a beer distributor, "The King of Piss," as he likes to call himself. Stretch is an excitable character, just as easily pulling out a gun to ward off competitors as improvising with a full mouth, offering up his view on life.
Redmond, while he was on the subway delivering the package for his con-man uncle, is attracted to the pretty legs or is it the tears coming from a stewardess on the train, whose name tag says Megan (Linda Fiorentino). When he approaches her she calls him an asshole and brushes him off, but these two are destined to meet again. Their romance becomes a key part of the story, except it can't connect with the story.
There is also the other girl, Happy (Lili Taylor), who is Redmond's ex but he now rejects her. The gag here is, that he once told her if he says no to her, that means he has become temporarily crazy and that she should ignore his denials and continue to pursue him. When she does that, it is good for a few laughs.
Uncle Sam comes back into the picture to take Redmond to his mob boss, Whacky Jack (Burt Young), to explain the missing package. The Russian enforcer for Jack, Borko (Krupa), sits in on the meeting and later on has his few moments of comedy, as he translates threats from an English dictionary what he is going to do to Redmond if he doesn't get the drugs back.
The film gets trapped in too many scenes that don't work. An assinine scene of friends getting high and quibbling about the nuances of "The Planet of the Apes," was one such abhorent scene. Another is the unlikely romance taking place between Corrigan and Fiorentino, which seemed out of context, and added nothing to the story, except it was more pleasant watching Fiorentino perform than it was in watching Corrigan. She was so much better than him, that it made me scratch my head and wonder what he was doing there. Her character was all the more compelling than his, even though she had such a small part. Nothing seemed to really work well here, yet all the supporting characters seemed to be pleasant and trying their best to make things work. But the film was too much of a childish fantasy on the part of Corrigan, and the dialogue was too flip. It was one of those films that you might find enjoyable if you are in the right frame of mind for watching actors improvise their way out of a bad script, or if you are stoned like the connoisseur participants in "Ape" film conversation were.
REVIEWED ON 8/6/2000 GRADE: C
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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