RENAISSANCE MAN
A film review by dnf@nauvax.ucc.nau.edu
Copyright 1994 dnf@nauvax.ucc.nau.edu
*sigh* God what an awful movie...
Warning: Some *minor* spoilers follow. I'll try not to give away too much plot, but I do have some things to say about certain aspects of the movie....
Let's start with the opening credits: Talk about product placement! Penny Marshall plays a game of "let's see how many major labels we can fit in the first two mintues of the movie while still looking like we're just trying to establish Chicago as the backdrop of this film."
If you've seen ON DEADLY GROUND (even if you haven't, you've probably heard about the famous bit of dialogue), you remember something along the lines of: "How long will it take for man to learn to be good?" says the good-guy. "All I need is some time to change," replies the bad-guy. Excuse me while I barf. ON DEADLY GROUND pretty much stuffed its morals down your throat. If you've seen WITH HONORS, you remember dialogue along the lines of, "Our Constitution was written by good men who wanted to make sure that power is in the hands of the people," etc., etc., etc.... Once again, Hollywood stuffs its morals down your throat *so blatantly* that you don't have to read between *any* lines to get the message! Hollywood thinks we're all dumb!
Well, once again, a movie comes out that is so in-your-face with its message that no thinking is required at all. This time, though, the dialogue is as follows:
Student: "Well if there's no grade for the test, do we get a
prize? Do we win a car?"
Teacher (DeVito): "Yeah, there's a prize. But it's not a prize you
can drive. It's not a prize you can buy. It's not a prize
you can touch. It's a prize you can feel."
PLEASE!!!!!! The movie was just chock-full of all *sorts* of cheesy lines like this!
Danny DeVito is a teacher in the Army (I suppose I should have mentioned that earlier, so you all would know what I'm talking about), and a drill-sergeant is played by Gregory Hines. Hines is a fine actor, but is not used to his potential at all in this film, largely because he was very miscast. In a confrontation between Hines and DeVito, DeVito manages to get Hines upset. Hines lunges towards DeVito, but it looks mostly like he just sorta wants to knock some sense into him. He is stopped before he even reaches DeVito, but overall, Hines does not seem like a deadly character. The very next scene has DeVito talking to some high-ranking guy who says, "He could have killed you. He would have been court-martialed, but he could have killed you." Wait a minute! Hines *never* looked like he wanted to kill him! Or even like he is the kind of person who *would* have *ever* wanted to kill him! ARGH! So much about this movie frustrated me!
DeVito teaches HAMLET to a bunch of Army recruits who need to be smart in order to pass military academy. But it doesn't seem like they really learned anything about grammar or any of the other areas in which they lacked, just by reading HAMLET. They just sort of liked the story about incest, sex, and murder. And if the entire plot revolved around him teaching HAMLET, he could have at *least* taught it *properly*!
Penny Marshall is a wonderful director. She doesn't do anything too outlandish in any of her films, and the same is true for RENAISSANCE MAN. As usual, she is pretty straight-forward in her story-telling.
This film definitely has potential. The script-writer (whoever he/she/they may be) obviously knows a lot about comedy, because there certainly were many comedic moments in the film. Plenty of opportunity to laugh out loud. But they knew *nothing* about writing drama. The dramatic arts of the films were *way* poorly written. It's a shame that it didn't get a couple other drafts because it really could have been good.
My rating, on a scale of, say, one to forty-three.... A ten...
I can't recommend it....
Sorry, Penny....
-David
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