BIG TROUBLE
Bad comedy is above history. Postponed after September 11 until the present
time, when in theory the sight of morons hustling a nuclear bomb through
airport security won't disturb anyone, Big Trouble could have come out
on September 12 and still would have had no impact on events or on the box
office.
Barry Sonnenfeld continues his decline from the relative genius of Get
Shorty and Men in Black in this adaptation of a novel by Miami
Herald humor columnist Dave Barry. Tim Allen's Eliot is a two-time Pulitzer
Prize-winning (hey, it's Barry's novel: he can be generous) Miami Herald
columnist who gets fired after putting his foot through an editor's computer
screen. And though that macho act is not enough to win over his spoiled son,
Matt (Ben Foster), Eliot goes on to get tangled up in multiple inane plots
involving a crooked foot-fetishist businessman (Stanley Tucci, from Big
Night to big toe), his abused wife (Rene Russo), some hitmen (including
Dennis Farina, a touch of class), random riff-raff (Tom Sizemore, out of
uniform), an idiot hippie (Jason Lee), a psychedelic toad, etc. The press
booklet declares that "These People [i.e., the cast] Are in Big Trouble." In
every way. At the Entertainment, Flagship, Holiday, Hoyts, Showcase, and
Tri-Boro cinemas.
Issue Date: April 5 - 11, 2002
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