I LOVE TROUBLE
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1994 Michael John Legeros
Directed by Charles Shyer Written by Charles and Nancy Shyer Cast Julia Roberts, Nick Nolte MPAA Rating "PG" Running Time Approx. 120 minutes
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No amount of nostalgia can bring back the past, but, oh, how TROUBLE tries. Spousal scribes Charles and Nancy Shyer--who remade FATHER OF THE BRIDE in 1991--have returned to reinvent the screwball comedy.
Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts play rival Chicago reporters. He's a veteran columnist, she's a cub reporter. They meet at the scene of a train derailment--a fitting metaphor for their first impressions. (He hates her guts, she thinks he's a sleaze.) They sniff around the wreckage, scoop each other's story, and, finally, pool their resources to work as a team. That is, a team that happens to file separately.
Rival reporting is a tried-and-true Hollywood tradition and, in the beginning, the film has the feel of one of those great, old newspaper classics like THE FRONT PAGE. Somewhere around the hour mark, though, TROUBLE transforms into a thriller, complete with bodies, bullets, and half-baked McGuffins. Which is too bad, because the plot--some nonsense about missing microfiche--shoots the film in the foot.
Nolte and Roberts have more chemistry than the film deserves, but not enough to keep viewers awake through the sitcom situations that the characters wind up in. The script's lack of snappy patter doesn't help much, either.
(The age discrepancy is almost worth noting, until you remember that Nolte and Roberts are the same age as when Tracy and Hepburn were doing the same thing.)
Technical credits are surprisingly superb. Charles Shyer's direction, Dean Tavoularis' production design, and John Lindley's lensing are all worth watching. If nothing else, I LOVE TROUBLE is one of the better-*looking* films of the summer.
Grade: C-
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