THE LATE SHIFT
A film review by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1996 Andrew Hicks / Fatboy Productions
**
Sure, the late night talk show wars of the past few years were silly, but that was no reason to make such a half-hearted caricature movie about them. Based on a book which took its topic seriously and was actually interesting, THE LATE SHIFT is a made-for-HBO feature that tells the story of the Jay Leno vs. David Letterman dealings that took place when Johnny Carson announced he was stepping aside and NBC had to decide who was to fill the slot.
Treated properly, this would have made a great movie, but the makers of THE LATE SHIFT movie put precedence on finding actors who resembled their real-life counterparts rather than finding actors with talent. Still, the Leno and Letterman look-alikes are some really bad imposters who look like a cross between living caricatures and those rubber creeps from the Duracell battery commercials. Anyone with a bad wig and cigar looks a little like Dave, and anyone with dark hair and a prosthetic chin looks a little like Leno. Anyone period could match the actors here for sheer talent.
"Saturday Night Live" stars Joe Piscopo and Kevin Nealon did far better Letterman and Leno impersonations, and both could have definitely been booked for this movie, so if they were going for people who could do good impressions, why not go for those two? They're obviously not below booking down-and-out comedians because they've got Rich Little playing Johnny Carson, which lends no credibility to the role, because most of the time Carson is supposed to deliver serious lines in such a badly impersonated voice, which renders them nothing but laughable. Same for Jay and Dave, whom we're supposed to take seriously but can't because the imposters are doing such a bad job.
There's no excuse for them not getting real talent to play the network executives, whom most of us have never seen or heard. The only decent acting talent in the movie is Kathy Bates, playing Leno manager Helen Kushnick, and she seems out of place in such a second-rate movie. Still, her bitch-from-hell performance is a welcome diversion from the cavalcade of crap the rest of the movie is. I couldn't tell if it was meant to be laughable or was just so awful it took on a camp value. Either way, it made a travesty out of a compelling book.
But even with amateur direction (including camera angles straight out of the 60's "Batman" show during Letterman's tirades), bad acting and a cheap synthesizer score probably stolen from a porno movie, an interesting story still manages to break through sometimes like the tiny sun rays that shine through dark storm clouds in little fingers of warmth. The inside dealings of the NBC executives, Letterman's GODFATHER-like meeting with superagent Michael Ovitz, Leno eavesdropping on an NBC board meeting, it's all made innately interesting by the knowledge that it all actually happened even though it is rendered badly.
Certain portions of THE LATE SHIFT are watchable, particularly those portions featuring Kathy Bates, and most people who haven't read the book find the movie version fascinating just because they haven't devoured the inside information in the far- superior written version, but the poor choice of actors directed badly and accompanied by bad music makes it a sour adaptation for those of us who have read Bill Carter's book. In the words of Judy, the perky Time-Life operator, "Read the book."
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