HIT AND RUNWAY A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2001 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): **
In Christopher Livingston's HIT AND RUNWAY, two reluctant writing partners, Alex Andero (Michael Parducci), a straight Italian, and Elliot Springer (Peter Jacobson), a gay Jew, join forces to develop a script for a Hollywood producer who wants a new project for Jagger Stevens (Hoyt Richards), his Clint Eastwood-style star. Just in case we miss the similarities, the movie has Jagger say things like "Make my day!" And lest we miss the connection between Elliot's brand of Jewish humor and Woody Allen's, there is a dream sequence in which Elliot sounds just like Woody.
Since Alex, who lives in the basement of his family's restaurant, is just learning the art of screenwriting at a class, he prevails upon Elliot to help him turn his action film, also titled HIT AND RUNWAY, into a comedy as the producer wants. About an undercover cop who investigates international crimes in the world of fashion models, this movie within the movie has the potential for some nice parody but get little screen time. Instead, the film mainly concerns the petty bickering between Alex and Elliot and between Elliot and his young boyfriend, Joey Worciuekowski (Kerr Smith). Joint screenwriting is "kind of like a marriage, only the people have to talk to each other," Elliot warns Alex. Of course, Elliot and Alex's screenwriting marriage will be a highly dysfunctional one that will end in divorce.
Most of the comedy is flat and obvious. As if it is some huge revelation, Elliot explains to Alex that the gay culture has a caste system in which the best looking men only date other similar hunks. This sounds exactly like the straight world, ignoring, of course, Julia Roberts brief marriage with Lyle Lovett, which gave false hopes to average looking men all over the planet.
Like a jet without enough power to lift off the runway, the film just taxis around slowly. Slack pacing is deadly for comedy, especially for one like this in which the good lines are few and far between. Even the best lines aren't anything to write home about. "I think I need something more neutral on the walls," Joey says in the film's best interchange. "You could always hang up a map of Switzerland," Elliot suggests as a solution.
HIT AND RUNWAY runs a very long 1:48. It is rated R for language, sexual content and some violent images and would be acceptable for most teenagers.
Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com
Want free reviews and weekly movie and video recommendations via Email? Just send me a letter with the word "subscribe" in the subject line.
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