BUDDY
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1997 Michael John Legeros
(Columbia)
Directed by Caroline Thompson
Written by Caroline Thompson, based on the book "Animals Are My
Hobby" by Gertrude Lintz
Cast Rene Russo, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Cumming, Irma P. Hall,
Paul Reubens
MPAA Rating "PG"
Running Time 84 minutes
Reviewed at General Cinemas at Pleasant Valley, NC (03JUN97)
==
Really, is anyone going to be surprised to learn that I walked out on BUDDY, director Caroline Thompson's family-friendly drama, based on the real life of Gertrude Lintz, an eccentric socialite in the 1920's who loved animals, liked to keep chimps around the house, and raised a certain gorilla as if it were a human child? Despite a game cast (Rene Russo, Robbie Coltrane, Irma P. Hall, and, in one scene, the Artist Formerly Known as Pee Wee Herman), a workable premise, and a director who most certainly knows her way around odd (she wrote EDWARD SCISSOR- HANDS, among other things), there isn't a thing here to engage the brain. No subtext, no wit, no tension, no terror. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
So, if you can find amusement in watching well-dressed chimps mon- key around a mansion... or delight in the care and feeding of anima- tronic animal infants... or have never seen David Letterman pose the question Can a Guy in a Gorilla Suit Get Into a Feature Film?, then this might be the movie for you. Or, more likely, your kids. Other- wise, you'll probably end up as I did, feeling like a caged animal after a mere twenty minutes. My companion, however, had another half-hour of optimism in her and, until that blessed beeline to the lobby, I passed the time by imagining alternate fates for the furry tyke: drop-kicked by Bruce Willis, cryogenically frozen with Mike Myers, pitched head- first into a lava flow, and, of course, swallowed whole by a still- hungry Tyrannosaurus Rex. Chomp.
Grade: W/O
--
Mike Legeros - Movie Hell http://www.nonvirtual.com/hell/
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