Guilty Pleasure No. 53: Happy Gilmore (dir by Dennis Dugan)

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Poor Shooter McGavin! As played by the great Christopher McDonald, Shooter McGavin is the often unacknowledged hero of the 1996 comedy classic, Happy Gilmore.

I know, I know. Most people will tell you that Shooter is actually the bad guy. He’s the snooty pro golfer who tries to keep aspiring hockey player-turned-golfer Happy Gilmore (Adam Sandler) from competing on the PGA tour. And it is true that he does allow himself to get consumed with jealousy over Happy’s popularity. And he does definitely cross the line when he buys and holds hostage the house where Happy’s grandmother has spent almost her entire life. (“She’s so old! Look at her! She’d old!” Happy exclaims at one point.) But try to look at it from Shooter’s point of view.

Shooter has spent years playing golf. He’s practiced. He’s paid his dues. He’s done what he had to do to earn his spot as America’s best golfer. And now, he finally has a chance to win his first championship. And what happens? A very loud hockey player shows up from out-of-nowhere and totally changes the sport. What really has to be galling is that Happy’s not even a good player. He can’t putt. He has no strategy. His only skill is the distance that he can hit the ball. And yet, despite all that, Happy becomes a media superstar. The only people willing to stand up to Happy and defend the honor of the game are Bob Barker and …. Shooter McGavin.

Really, Shooter doesn’t really start to go after Happy until Happy’s fans starts to purposefully antagonize him. Remember Happy’s ex-boss showing up to heckle Shooter even though he still had that nail in his head? Seriously that’s not right. I mean, who shows up to support the dude who put a nail in your head? Shooter McGavin had every reason to be concerned about that.

Despite the fact that Shooter was treated rather unfairly, Happy Gilmore is definitely a favorite of mine. I pretty much love the entire film, from Carl Weathers’s enjoyably demented performance as Happy’s mentor to the famous scene of Bob Barker beating Happy to a pulp. For those who only know Adam Sandler from his later, lazier comedies, Happy Gilmore will be a bit of a revelation because Sandler and the entire cast actually seem to be making an effort to make a good and funny comedy. The staid world of golf turns out to be the perfect foil for Sandler’s manchild antics. And for those who prefer Sandler when he’s playing serious roles, he actually does a pretty good job in Happy Gilmore’s few sincere moments. His scenes with his grandmother are actually rather sweet.

Happy Gilmore remains Sandler’s best comedy and it’s a personal favorite of mine. Every time I watch it, I laugh and that’s a good thing. I also like to think that Shooter and Happy eventually set aside their differences and got their own talk show on ESPN. They deserved it.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Insomnia File #53: A Nightmare on Drug Street (dir by Traci Wald Donat)

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or Netflix? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have gone over to YouTube and you could have done what I did when I was having trouble getting to sleep two nights ago. You could have watched the 1989 educational film, A Nightmare on Drug Street.

Clocking in at 39 minutes, A Nightmare on Drug Street opens with three people sitting in a dark room. Though the room seems ominous and the three people often appear to only be shadows, they turn out to to be friendly enough. (And no, Freddy Krueger is not among them. This is Drug Street, not Elm Street.)

“Hi, I’m Jill!” the one in the middle informs us. “I’m dead!”

Filipe, who is is sitting to left of and is a bit less perky than Jill, mentions that they’re all dead. Eddie, the youngest of the three, speaks up and mentions that he’s been dead for two days longer than Jill. They all have a good laugh about that. Jill says that she’s not sure where they are but she thinks that they’re supposed to think about their mistakes and to try to prevent other people their age from making the same mistakes.

“Jill,” I nearly shouted at the screen, “you’re in Purgatory! It’s not that complicated!”

Eddie complains as he realizes that he’s going to have to relive his story again. Jill laughs and says that Eddie is always complaining. Filipe does not laugh because he’s not in a particularly good mood and I don’t blame him. His Purgatory experience is obviously not turning out the way that he was hoping. It would appear that Filipe has gotten trapped on the boring side of Purgatory.

Anyway, we then see how each of them ended up dead. As you can probably guess from the title it all has to do with drugs.

For instance, after winning the big game, Filipe got both stoned and drunk and then decided that it would be a good idea to steal his brother’s car. Needless to say, it doesn’t take long until Filipe’s more intelligent friend is demanding to be let out of the car. It also doesn’t take long to hear the sound of an off-screen crash. Apparently, there wasn’t enough money in the budget to film a real crash.

Jill met a guy at a party and basically allowed herself to be talked into trying cocaine. As anyone who has ever seen a film like this can probably guess, Jill goes straight from doing that one line to stealing from her friends and selling a family heirloom so she can get more money for coke. Her family is disappointed in her. Her friends are angry with her. And her drug dealer keeps hitting on her. No wonder Jill eventually end up snorting too much.

And finally, Eddie, who is still in middle school, is handed a crack pipe by a friend. Soon, Eddie is getting high in the bathroom while his parents try to understand why his grades have gone down.

Interestingly enough, each story is narrated by a dead teen but not the teen that actually dies in the story. So, Jill tells Filipe’s story and makes fun of him for being geeky whenever he gets high. (Yeah, Jill, like you looked really cool with your bloodshot eyes and your red nose….) Eddie tells Jill’s story and manages to get through it without ridiculing her. Filipe tells Eddie’s story while wearing what appears to be a hospital gown. There’s actually a scene in Purgatory where the three of them debate who will tell each story. Do they automatically know the stories or is it just a case that they’re memorized them because there’s literally nothing else to talk about while in Purgatory? The film leaves that question unanswered, which is a shame.

(Speaking of unanswered questions, why are we even in Purgatory in the first place? The three narrators look directly at the viewer when they speak so I’m guess that I’m meant to have died as well. But if I’m already dead, what’s the point of warning me about drugs? Seriously, there’s a lot of unanswered questions in this film.)

Anyway, as for the film itself, it’s another well-intentioned but not quite successful attempt to make an anti-drug scare film. Like many anti-drug short films, A Nightmare on Drug Street suffers due to the fact that the characters are more interesting when they’re high than when they’re sober. The stories themselves often veer into melodrama though, to the film’s credit, it seems to at least be a bit self-aware when it comes to this. When Filipe jumps in his car, Jill says that she knows that we know what’s going to happen but she asks us to keep watching anyways. After being specifically asked to watch, you kind of feel like you have to.

For the most part, this film’s main worth is as a time capsule. It’s all about 80s fashion and 80s lingo. Breaking Bad fans will take note that Filipe is played by Raymond Cruz, who later played a fearsome drug dealer on the classic AMC series. I guess Filipe found his way out of Purgatory after all.

Previous Insomnia Files:

The Great Outdoors (1988, directed by Howard Deutch)

Posted on March 24, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Chet Ripley (John Candy) wants to have a nice vacation up at the lake with his wife (Stephanie Faracy) and their two sons, Buck (Chris Young) and Ben (Ian Giatti). Unfortunately, no sooner has he arrived than the vacation is crashed by Chet’s sister-in-law (Annette Bening, making her film debut) and her husband, Roman (Dan Aykroyd). Roman represents everything that that the mild-mannered Chet hates. Roman is loud, obnoxious, and obsessed with showing off his wealth. Roman knows nothing about how to survive in the great outdoors and he treats Chet like he’s a loser but, for the sake of giving his family a good vacation, Chet tries to get along with Roman. At first, it doesn’t work but eventually, Chet and Roman have to team up to find Roman’s daughters and deal with not only a bear but also talking raccoons. Meanwhile, Buck falls in love with local girl, Cammie (Lucy Deakins). I imagine the same can be said of a lot of people who caught this film on HBO when they were twelve.

The Great Outdoors is very much a comedy of the late 80s. Roman may be a crass Yuppie but it doesn’t appear that Chet is suffering financially either. The humor is broad and physical but the film never resorts to the gross-out style that has since come to define cinematic comedy. It’s a film that makes fun of the obligations of family life while also celebrating them and you won’t be shocked to learn that the script was written by John Hughes. John Candy is likable and Dan Aykroyd has a demented twinkle in his eye.

It’s not a bad movie but I just wish it had been funnier. Don’t get me wrong. When you’re a kid and you come across The Great Outdoors on cable, it’s hilarious because it’s got John Candy waterskiing and a bear and, of course, the talking raccoons. Watching it as an adult, though, it’s easier to see just how much the material and the film’s family-safe approach holds back both Candy and especially Aykroyd. Both of them were capable of being wild comedic performance but, in The Great Outdoors, the movie doesn’t let either one of them really go crazy and that’s too bad. Instead of being a showcase for the best of SNL and SCTV, it becomes an amusing but ultimately very safe family comedy. (Arguably, Hollywood never really figured out the best way to use Candy and Aykroyd’s comedic talents, though Candy’s films before his untimely death suggested that he was on the verge of a genuine breakthrough.)

I did laugh when I rewatched The Great Outdoors but I didn’t laugh as much as I did when I was a kid. Now, I feel old and I’m thinking about how unfortunate it is that John Candy died before production could start on the biopic of Fatty Arbuckle that Candy was tentatively set to star in. Much like Phil Hartman, it’s hard to watch John Candy today without thinking about how he was taken when he was on the verge of probably doing what would have been his best work.

Time to cheer myself up with What About Bob?

Montana Incident (1952, directed by Lewis D. Collins)

Posted on March 23, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Whip Wilson (played, in a fortunate coincidence, by Whip Wilson) and his partner, Dave Conners (Rand Brooks) work for the railroad company as surveyors in the old west. They’ve come to the town of Martinville to convince the citizens that the town would benefit from having a train station. Mostly, they just want to go to the saloon, have a beer, and flirt with the local gals.

Albert Hawkins (WIlliam Fawcett) is the leader of the local homesteaders and he’s all for bringing the railroad to town. Land baron Max Martin (Hugh Prosser) disagrees. Martin is not really a bad person but his daughter, Clara (Peggy Stewart), is a greedy fanatic who doesn’t want to lose the water rights to the land. With her boyfriend, outlaw Arnold Benson (Bruce Edwards), Clara rules the town with an iron fist. Whip and Dave must defeat Arnold and Clara so that progress can come to the frontier.

Montana Incident is a standard western programmer but it is distinguished by having an evil female land baron instead of the usual male land baron. Stewart tears into the world, proving that she can be just as dangerous as any man. Fans of the old Adventures of Superman TV show will immediately recognize Noel Neill, playing the role of Clara’s much nicer sister.

If you’re a fan of B-westerns, Montana Incident is watchable enough. Wilson and Brooks are bland heroes but Peggy Stewart is so good at being evil that she makes the movie worth watching.

The Last Castle (2001, directed by Rod Lurie)

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

It’s Redford vs. Gandolfini in The Last Castle!

The last castle of the title is a United States Military Prison, one that was originally constructed during the Civil War and which resembles a castle, but with one big difference. Castles were originally designed to keep people from entering. The purpose of this castle is to keep people from leaving.

Colonel Ed Winter (James Gandolfini) is the prison’s commandant, a martinet who has never served in war but who keeps a collection of bullets and weapons in his office. Eugene Irwin (Robert Redford) is the newest inmate. Irwin was a highly respected general until he disobeyed a presidential order and eight of his men died as a result. Irwin has been stripped of his rank and sentenced to ten years. He tells Winter that he just wants to do his time and then go home. That’s fine with Winter, until he overhears Irwin disparaging his collection of battlefield memorabilia.

At first, Irwin tries to lay low. Even when he sees firsthand that Winter is a sadist who manipulates the inmates and who isn’t above ordering his guards to kill an inmate in order to make a point, Irwin tries to stay uninvolved. But eventually, Irwin’s natural military instincts kick in and he leads the prisoners in a revolt against Col. Winter.

The Last Castle requires a healthy suspension of disbelief. Irwin brings the inmates together by reminding them that they were once soldiers and that, even when serving time in a military prison, they’re apart of a grand tradition of soldiers who have been court-martialed. He soon has them saluting and standing at attention and walking in formation. The movie overlooks the fact that most of the prisoners were sentenced to the prison by men much like General Irwin. The idea that all of them are just waiting for someone to once again start barking orders at them just doesn’t seem plausible. Instead, it seems more likely the Irwin, as a former general, would be the least popular inmate in a prison that’s full of enlisted men who feel that they were screwed over the army. In the end, Irwin asks the prisoners to sacrifice a lot but, in the end, it doesn’t matter how heroically he’s framed in each scene or how much the music swells on the soundtrack, Iwin’s rebellion seems like its more about ego than anything else. Even if it means getting rid of Col. Winter, would any of the inmates realistically be willing to die for Eugene Irwin?

At the same time, The Last Castle is worth watching just to see James Gandolfini face off against Robert Redford. Gandolfini plays his role with the type of neurotic energy that only a method actor is capable of capturing while Redford is his typical move star self. The contrast between their two styles of acting translates well into the contrast between Winter and Irwin’s philosophy of leadership. Among the inmates, Mark Ruffalo and Clifton Collins, Jr. both have early roles. Of the two, Ruffalo gets to play the only character in the film with a hint of moral ambiguity and he runs with it. Clifton Collins, Jr., meanwhile, plays a character whose fate will be obvious to anyone who has ever seen a film before. The Last Castle has its moment but it’s never a surprising movie.

The Last Castle ends with a spontaneous display of patriotism, one that is effective but also feels implausible and out-of-place. It’s the perfect way to sum up this frustrating but occasionally diverting film.

Film Review: Icahn: The Restless Billionaire (dir by Bruce David Klein)

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I actually talk about Icahn: The Restless Billionaire, I should probably confess something. Well, actually, this is a reconfession because I explain this every time that I review any movie or documentary the deals with stocks and investments and big shorts and corporate takeovers and all the rest. The Stock Market confuses the heck out of me.

Seriously, I have no idea how it works. Everything that I hear about it just confuses me. How can you invest money that you don’t have in order to make or lose money that might not actually exist? How can people keep buying stock in the same company? It just seems like a company should eventually run out of stock. And what is stock anyways? And don’t even get me started on this whole thing where people can apparently secretly buy everyone’s stock and then force a company’s founder to resign or sell the company itself. That’s just weird to me.

I will also admit that I actually do own stock. I didn’t buy any of it. Some of it, I inherited. Some of it was gifted to me. Some of it, I got through work. Off the top of my head, I really couldn’t tell you much about any of the stock that I own. I’ve been told that my stock’s doing well, which is fine with me. Nobody ever tells me if my stocks aren’t doing well, which is also fine with me. I don’t really need that pressure.

Some people, however, love the pressure. Carl Icahn, for instance, has made billions by playing with the stock market and by taking over struggling companies and then selling them for a profit. Icahn’s detractors call him a pirate or a raider. Icahn claims that he’s an activist, taking over poorly managed companies and then selling them for a profit so that people, like me, who have no idea how any of this works can also make a profit. (And, of course, Icahn makes a huge amount of money off of it as well.) Carl Icahn is thought to have been one of the role models for Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko. Consider that Wall Street was released in 1987 and you can see just how long Carl Icahn has been doing this.

Icahn: The Restless Billionaire is a documentary about both the man and his controversial career. It delves a little into his childhood and features plenty of scenes of Icahn at his mansions and in his ornate office. For the most part, though, it’s a collection of scenes of Icahn and some of his associates discussing the various takeovers and battles that Icahn has been involved with over the years. The documentary is unapologetically pro-Icahn. If you’re expecting to see AOC or Bernie pop up and start going on about taxing the rich or condemning billionaires, you’re out of luck. In fact, the documentary is so pro-Icahn that it almost feels like a relic from a different era. For that matter, so does Carl Icahn. Icahn is happily pro-capitalism and he makes no apologies for that. A lot of viewers aren’t going to be used to seeing that in a contemporary documentary, especially not one produced by HBO. Myself, I’m a fan of capitalism and free enterprise so it didn’t bother me and the documentary, at the very least, worked as a change of pace. Still, I can’t help but imagine that a lot of my friends would have ended up throwing something at the TV.

Carl Icahn is obviously a smart guy and he’s made a lot of money. I enjoyed looking at the house. At the same time, he’s not exactly the most charismatic billionaire in the world and the scenes that attempt humanize him come across as being stiff and staged. The documentary is probably at its best when its just Icahn and his associates talking about the battles that he’s fought. I honestly couldn’t follow what they were talking about but I also couldn’t deny that they all seemed to be having fun.

Scene That I Love: The Opening of Mulholland Drive (Happy Birthday, Angelo Badalamenti)

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy birthday, Angelo Badalamenti!

This great composer is probably best known for his dream-like and haunting work for the films of David Lynch. Among the many songs and musical pieces that he’s done for Lynch, he composed the jitterbug music that opened David Lynch’s 2001 film, Mulholland Drive. The scene below features the perfect mix of Lynch’s visual vision and Badalamenti’s musical ear. What I especially like about this scene is that the music starts out as a very cheerful and vaguely generic but then it grows steadily more ominous as the scene plays out.

Here it is. The haunting opening of one of the best films of the current century:

Film Review: Lucy and Desi (dir by Amy Poehler)

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you were as disappointed with Being the Ricardos as I was but you still want to learn something about the lives and the marriage of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, might I suggest checking out Lucy and Desi?

Directed by Amy Poehler, Lucy and Desi covers much of the same material as Being the Ricardos but it does so in a far more authentic way. This is because Lucy and Desi is a documentary, one featuring actual interviews and recordings from Lucy, Desi, and the people who worked with them through the years. As a result, we get to hear the story in their own words as opposed to Aaron Sorkin’s words. I’m hardly the first person to point out that Aaron Sorkin is incapable of writing dialogue that doesn’t sound like something that Aaron Sorkin himself would say. In Being the Ricardos, Lucy and her writers all spoke in Sorkinese and it all felt rather false. Watching Lucy and Desi, you quickly realize that both Lucy and Desi were intelligent and articulate people. Their own words are strong enough, without needing a polish from a screenwriter who, by his own admission, never found I Love Lucy to be all that funny.

Lucy and Desi covers the early lives of both Lucy and Desi as well as detailing how they first met, how they married, and how they went on to revolutionize television with I Love Lucy. More than just being portrayed as being a talented but somewhat volatile couple, both Lucy and Desi emerges as fascinating individuals in their own right. Both of them survived childhood difficulties, both of them remade themselves in Hollywood, and, most importantly, both of them had an instinctive understanding of what audiences wanted to see.

They were also very much in love, even after their divorce. That love was missing from Being the Ricardos but it’s very much present in Lucy and Desi. It was that love that led to the marriage that led to the partnership that made them a success but it was that same success that eventually led to the end of their marriage. And yet, even after divorcing, Lucy and Desi remained close. Their daughter, Lucie Arnaz, talks about the last few times that Lucy saw Desi before Desi’s succumbed to lung cancer. They watched old episodes of I Love Lucy and they laughed together. It’s an incredibly touching moment.

And if sentimentality isn’t your thing, Lucy and Desi also explores just how important their partnership was to the development of modern television. I Love Lucy was the first “modern” sitcom but their company, Desilu Productions, had a hand in producing several other classic shows as well. Star Trek was a Desilu production. So were Mission Impossible and The Untouchables. So much of what we take for granted about pop culture started with Lucy and Desi.

Perhaps the most shocking revelation in the Lucy and Desi documentary is that the J. Edgar Hoover story was true! You may remember that, when I reviewed Being the Ricardos, I scoffed at the scene where Hoover called the studio and personally cleared Lucy of being a communist. But apparently, this actually did happen! I’m as stunned as anyone.

Lucy and Desi is a good and heartfelt tribute to Lucy and Desi, their talent and their love and their lasting influence. It can be viewed on Prime.

Sliver (1993, directed by Phillip Noyce)

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Who here remembers Sliver?

It may be hard to believe it but Sliver was a big deal back in the day. It was one of Robert Evans’s first producing gigs after getting out of rehab. It was Sharon Stone’s first film after Basic Instinct. The script was written by Basic Instinct‘s Joe Eszterhas, back when that was still something that people bragged about. It featured Tom Berenger, back before he found himself relegated to character roles, and William Baldwin. Remember William Baldwin? He was Alec Baldwin’s younger brother. He looked just like Alec but he never managed to project much of a personality whenever he was onscreen. Even Stephen Baldwin was a more interesting actor than William. Still, back in the day, William Baldwin was close to being a star.

William Baldwin’s lack of personality actually works for the role he plays in Sliver. He’s Zeke, who owns an exclusive high-rise apartment building. Zeke makes his money designing video games and he’s filled the building with secret video cameras so he can spend all day sitting in front of a wall of monitors and watching his tenants and experiencing their lives without having to get close to them. Zeke’s a voyeur. Back in the 90s, the surveillance thing was a big twist. Today, we take it for granted. We even applauded Batman for doing the same thing to all of the citizens of Gotham.

Sharon Stone plays Carly, the newest resident of the Sliver. Carly is a recently divorced book editor snd is lonely and repressed despite being played by Sharon Stone. She draws the attention of both Zeke and her neighbor, Jack (Tom Berenger). Both are interested when they discover that Carly has a telescope on her balcony. “She’s a voyeur!” Jack says. When Carly gets involved with Zeke, Jack is obsessively jealous. He insinuates that Zeke had something to do with the death of the previous tenant of Carly’s apartment.

After Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone made a series of films that were designed to show that she actually could act by casting her as characters who were meant to be sexually repressed. The films never seemed to work because, at the height of Sharon Stone’s 90s stardom, there was nothing about her that suggested that she was repressed in any way. What made her a star in the first place was that she was so uninhibited and not afraid to be as blunt about sex as any of her male co-stars. In Sliver, she gives a performance that is somewhere between her vampish work in Basic Instinct and her terrible ice queen performance in Intersection. At the start of the film, she feels miscast as a straight-laced book editor but her performance gets better once she starts hooking up with Zeke. Sharon Stone tries, even if she doesn’t succeed. That’s more than can be said for most of her co-stars.

“Get a life,” Sharon Stone says at the end of the movie and, as far as final lines go, it’s a bad one because it comes out of nowhere and her actions in the final scene don’t fit in with anything that she’s previously said or done in the film. That’s because the ending was hastily reshot after test audiences disliked the original ending. Test audiences often have the worst instincts.

Like many things, Sliver was big in the 90s but forgotten today. It was a popular Blockbuster rental for a while. VCRs were set for whenever it appeared on Cinemax. When it first came out, it was all about Sharon Stone. Today, it’s all about nostalgia.

Film Review: Deep Water (dir by Adrian Lyne)

Posted on March 18, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Just released on Hulu, Deep Water is the funniest film of the year so far.

Ben Affleck stars as Vic Van Allen. (Even his name is funny!) Vic made a fortune by inventing a computer chip that is used to help drones track people down and blow them up. Now, Vic is retired, living in a nice and small town, and publishing a photography/poetry magazine. He enjoys going to parties with his friends, joking about committing murder, and riding the heck out of his bike. Seriously, the shots of Affleck riding that bike are comparable to Will Ferrell playing the flute in Anchorman.

Ana de Armas plays Vic’s wife, Melinda. Everyone, including Vic, knows that Melinda cheats on Vic with almost every man that she meets. Vic accepts Melina’s infidelities on the condition that she not leave him and their daughter, Trixie (Grace Jenkins). Of course, Vic does still get upset. When Melinda’s former lover vanishes, Vic jokes to Melinda’s current lover that he killed the previous lover. Everyone in town gets a good laugh out of that one. Everyone, that is, but for Melinda and local busybody Don Wilson (Tracy Letts).

Both Melinda and Don think that Vic is capable of murder. As far as Don is concerned, Vic is responsible for the death of every single person who has ever been blown by a drone. Meanwhile, Melinda knows that there’s something strange about the way that Vic spends all of his time taking care of the hundreds of snails that he keeps in the basement. Vic, of course, insists that he was just making a joke when he said that he was a murderer. But then Vic actually does murder someone and things get complicated….

From what I understand, Deep Water is supposed to be a serious thriller but I absolutely refuse to believe that it’s not actually meant to be a parody of the genre. It’s director Adrian Lyne’s first film in 20 years. Lyne is best know for directing movies like 9 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction. Indecent Proposal, and Unfaithful and so many of the scenes in Deep Water feel as if they’ve been specifically designed as a way to poke fun at Lyne’s previous films that one can’t help but suspect that at least a few of the film’s laughs are meant to be intentional. This is a film that features Ben Affleck, on a bicycle, chasing a car while the driver rants about how autocorrect is always ruining his text messages. I absolutely refuse to accept that this was truly meant to be taken seriously.

That said, Affleck wanders through the film with a glum expression on his face, one that suggests that he wasn’t let in on the joke ahead of time. Ana de Armas is ultimately defeated by a script that refuses to allow her character to behave with any consistency but she’s still smart enough to play Melinda as being a character who is at least partially aware that she’s in a movie. As for Tracy Letts, I have never seen any reputable actor overact quite as much as Tracy Letts does towards the end of Deep Water. It’s a sight to behold.

Adrian Lyne makes sure that the film looks good but he never manages to strike a consistent tone and the film’s plot is full of holes. Affleck spends a lot of time gazing at snails while Ana de Armas throws a fit when her daughter keeps insisting that Alexa play Old MacDonald. Tracy Letts, at one point, sees Affleck riding his bicycle and starts cursing like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Deep Water doesn’t really work as a thriller but, as a comedy, it’s a lot of fun.