THE PALLBEARER
A film review by John Paul Powell
Copyright 1996 John Paul Powell
Originally published in the Outreach Connection Newspaper (May 3, 1996)
Good Friends Aren't So Hard To Find
A Review By John Powell
Copyright 1996 John Powell
The Pallbearer
Starring: David Schwimmer, Gwyneth Paltrow, Barbara Hershey, Michael Rapaport and Toni Collette. Written by: Jason Katims and Matt Reeves. Directed by: Matt Reeves. Produced by: Jeffrey Abrams and Paul Webster. An Alliance Communications release.
We're Substitute Friends For You
(Sung to the tune of "I'll Be There For You:The Theme To Friends" by The Rembrandts.)
No one told Bill Abernathy it would end this way. His life's a joke. No hope. The Chess Club his mainstay. Bill gave the world the finger on that day. He closed the door, revved the engine and never drove away.
Chorus
His mom found him there. He gave her quite a scare. Industrial-size curlers in her hair. Exhaust fumes floatin' everywhere. She whispered a silent prayer. Bill's corpse drooled without a care.
Tom Thompson can't find a job, no matter how he tries. Graduated the head of his class. He can't take flippin' fries. Tom lives with his mother, she's such a dear. Turning thirty in a bunkbed is his greatest fear.
Chorus
His mom sleeps down the hall. She can hear him through the walls. No chicks come and call. It's like having a chaperon at the ball. A worse time you can't recall. Tom's love life is in a deadfall.
Lost and lonely, Mrs. A gives Tom a call. Ruth insists Tom's a friend of her son's. He doesn't remember Bill at all. Mrs. Abernathy cries fibre-optic tears. Tom doesn't have the heart to tell her and the truth disappears.
Chorus
Together they pack Bill's effects. Each item he closely inspects. Tom's memory still neglects. It's her feelings he gallantly protects. What if Ruth suspects? Tom is conned into paying his respects.
Tom and pals write a eulogy for a man they did not know. They mock the funeral. How could anyone stoop so low? Overcome by guilt, Tom comforts Ruth. Sorrow turns to passion and she lusts in his youth.
Chorus
Tom will be there for her. When her breasts start to fall. He'll be there for her. When she's sucking back Geritol. Tom will be there for her. When her brain starts to stall.
Julie, Tom's high school crush, arrives back in town. She professes her love for him. It's an offer he can't turn down. Tom leaves Ruth hanging by a thin thread. How can he admit to knowing Bill only after he was dead?
Chorus
Tom has really stepped into it. And you thought Hugh Grant was a twit. He didn't use a dead guy to score a hit. Still, what an embarrassing deed to commit. The world laughed at the bumbling Brit. He should have picked a street more dimly lit.
David Schwimmer plays Ross on that weekly Friends TV show. He's one up on Matt LeBlanc. His first feature film doesn't blow. A monkey in a baseball movie, what's wrong with this? A question Matt should have asked before sinking into the abyss.
Chorus
Gwyneth Paltrow sure does shine. Barbara Hershey is divine. Schwimmer can leave Friends behind. A better Tom you cannot find. The Pallbearer, a comedy massaging the mind. If dark humor's your favourite kind.
The friends in Pallbearer are as real as you and me. Not like those phoney, well-dressed dopes lurking on TV. Trials and tribulations solved in thirty minutes flat. Perfect haircuts. Perfect lives. It's enough to make you crack.
Chorus
We're substitute friends for you. You don't have any of your own. Switch us on, allow us into your home. Count the valuable hours you have blown. Relax and listen to us drone. Dogs chewing on the ratings' bone.
The Pallbearer is rated S for Sensational. Schwimmer / Paltrow / Hershey x a pounding score by Stewart Copeland x a high school year book + one coffin race x Neil Young's Harvest Moon + a yummy glass of chocolate milk x a rib-fracturing eulogy + one mint Pacer automobile = Mrs. Robinson lock lips with Generation X.
Outreach Rating: 10 headstones / 10
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