TRIXIE (director/writer: Alan Rudolph; screenwriter: from a story by John Binder & Rudolph; cinematographer: Jan Kiesser; editor: Michael Ruscio; cast: Emily Watson (Trixie Zurbo), Dermot Mulroney (Dex Lang), Nick Nolte (Senator Drummond Avery), Nathan Lane (Kirk Stans), Brittany Murphy (Ruby Pearli), Lesley Ann Warren (Dawn Sloane), Will Patton (Red Rafferty); Runtime: 115; Sony Pictures Classics; 2000)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Offbeat film director Alan Rudolph (ChooseMe) makes films that require an acquired taste to fully enjoy. In this fluff piece, which the director calls a "screwball noir," it suffers mostly because its mixture of being a formula noir tale and a comic farce is overtaken by its forced comedy and a story that has little drama in it, but it perks up at times because of the charming performances by all concerned and the constant barrage of wacky dialogue.
Trixie (Emily Watson) is a simple-minded square espousing innocence with her wide-eyes, but by her constant misuse of language through the use of malapropisms, she becomes a comic figure. She came from Chicago with her misplaced Midwestern accent to be an undercover lakeside resort casino security guard somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. She is chewing the fat even when she's chewing gum, romancing a confused young lustful man and while on a murder case is desperately trying to overcome her lack of knowledge about romance.
Through her overnight casino job she meets those who the story revolves around. She befriends a lounge comic Kirk (Nathan Lane), who offers her platonic-paternal counseling. His shopworn act of imitating celebrities' well-known sayings, is the pits. Dex (Dermot Mulroney) is a young Romeo bumbler who picks her up in the casino and arouses the young virgin's sexual interest. Dawn (Lesley Anne Warren) is a kept woman, enamored by her own sexiness though not particularly liking sex and, on top of that, is a pill-popping, mediocre pop-country singer. Red Rafferty (Will Patton) is a sleazy real estate developer and a small time gangster, who keeps Dawn as his mistress and has Dex as his lackey attendant. The femme fatale role falls to the spurned lover of Dex, the one who had his child, barfly Ruby (Brittany Murphy). Senator Drummond Avery (Nolte) is the incarnation of a white-maned politician who is both lecherous and corrupt, and he is the partner of Red in debauchery and in smelly land deals. He is in the habit of excusing his indiscretions by pointing out other politicians who had affairs on the side, like Ike and FDR and how that didn't prevent them from doing their job.
The film starts off in an amusingly pleasant way, as Trixie's banter is laced with continuous malapropisms such as, 'By hook or ladder,' 'He smokes like a fish,' and 'Nobody is human.' But this one-joke idea of a film soon starts to wear thin and the laughs become harder to get, as her malapropisms come with every sentence she utters and eventually bring the film down.
The film's strongest scene is set on Red's boat, where violence and a possible sense of an orgy happening clouds the pleasure cruise. It culminates in Trixie attacking Red for pinching her and of Dex coming to her aid, and of them getting kicked off the boat by the hired thugs Red employs.
When Dawn disappears, Trixie tracks her down and learns of a videotape she has of a sexually incriminating act, which she has hidden and is using it as a means of blackmail for money. After Trixie locates the tape, Dawn is thrown out of the hotel window she had been hiding out in and Trixie decides that she must solve the murder. To do this, she joins the martini drinking senator in the upscale restaurant he frequents and from there on the film turns into a suspense story, as Trixie begins to unravel the mystery of the murder. Unfortunately, the picture itself also unravels.
This is an actor's picture, where they are given every chance to do their thing, even if it results in over-acting. Emily Watson is featured in every scene and makes the best of what she's given to work with. Nick Nolte hams it up and unmercifully chews-the-scenery whenever he can, especially when ranting about his impoverished childhood and the peccadilloes of other politicians. The film was mildly enjoyable, but could have been much better if Rudolph tried to put a coherent story together instead of just going for cheap comedy.
REVIEWED ON 1/30/2001 GRADE: C
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
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