Critic Doctor (Herb Kane) - Review by Peter Sobsczynski: Big Bounce (2004)

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FILM REVIEW

THE BIG BOUNCE
by Peter Sobczynski

January 30, 2004

1/2 (out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Written by Sebastien Guttierrez. Directed by George Armitage. Starring Owen Wilson, Morgan Freeman, Sara Foster, Gary Sinise and Charlie Sheen. PG-13

One of the great Hollywood stories revolves around the making of the Humphrey Bogart classic "The Big Sleep". As the tale goes, director Howard Hawks was going through the script one day during the shooting and realized that he couldn’t figure out who killed one of the minor characters (a chauffeur, if memory serves). He asked the screenwriters and they couldn’t figure out whodunit. Finally, they all went to Raymond Chandler, author of the original book, and asked him who the culprit was and even he couldn’t answer the question. However, what Hawks learned was that if the story is entertaining enough, such details are irrelevant. This is a lesson that the makers of "The Big Bounce" seem to have taken to heart. This is a caper film with so many convoluted plots, double-crosses and triple-crosses that flow charts should be handed out with every ticket. And yet, while I am pretty sure that things don’t quite add up in the end (in fact, I know that things don’t quite add up), I have to admit that I had a pretty good time watching the film unfold in its amiably haphazard fashion.

Owen Wilson, Hollywood’s go-to guy when an easy-going goofus is needed, stars as Jack Ryan (no, not that Jack Ryan), a petty criminal and drifter so laid back that he makes Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski look like a Fortune 500 candidate by comparison. As the film opens, he has landed in Hawaii, where he is working (sort of) on the construction of a hotel that is being built by sleazy developer Ray Ritchie (Gary Sinise) over the protests of the locals. One day, Jack loses his job and becomes the hero of the natives when he decks the construction foreman (Vinnie Jones) with a baseball bat-not out of any deep-seated conviction but because the guy tried to break up a softball game. None of the locals are particularly upset with his actions-the prosecutor (Willie Nelson...yes, Willie Nelson) is all in favor of it and another big-wig, judge/resort owner Walter Crewes (Morgan Freeman) offers him a job for no other reason than the fact that it will annoy Ritchie.

Before long, Jack is offered another job by Nancy (Sara Foster), Ray’s disgruntled mistress. It turns out that Ray has $200,000 in cash stashed away that he is planning to use to bribe officials so that he can finish building his hotel. After a weird meet-cute (which includes skinny-dipping, a boxing match and a minor B&E, Nancy proposes that with her knowledge and Jack’s expertise, they can easily steal the money and run away together. Even Jack admits that the plan doesn’t make a lot of sense but he agrees to go along with it-mostly because Nancy has correctly deduced that Jack is the kind of guy who is willing to go along with any plan as long as it is suggested by a pretty girl in a tiny bikini.

"The Big Bounce" is based on a book by famed novelist Elmore Leonard and, like his other works, the focus is less on the mechanics of the plot and more on the character and dialogue. In the hands of a typical writer, for example, Jack would just be a dope who would be so blinded by Nancy’s charms that he wouldn’t see the trouble he was quickly sinking into. Despite his dopey exterior, Jack is perfectly aware of the fact that he is embroiled in a scam-he sticks around not because he is a patsy but because he, just like us, wants to see how things are going to turn out. Even the plot twists (of which Leonard is famous for and of which there are several here) seem less like a forced writer contrivance and more like the kind of random weirdness that occurs in everyday life.

And, of course, there is that wonderful Leonard dialogue-that endlessly colorful and quotable dialogue that is as distinctive as Shakespeare and twice as entertaining. Although I haven’t read "The Big Bounce", much of the dialogue in the film seems to have come directly from the pages of the book; perhaps screenwriter Sebastian Gutierrez realized that any attempt to "improve" on Leonard (as others have tried and failed to do in the past, including a previous 1969 adaptation of "The Big Bounce"-a film so apparently bad that Leonard refused to sell his books to Hollywood for years afterwards as a result) was doomed from the start. To quote liberally from the dialogue would spoil a lot of the fun but I defy you not to smile when Nancy explains that she used to be a "hostess" at a strip club and Jack observes, "You ever notice how everyone hostesses but no one strips?"

Many have tried to bring Elmore Leonard to the screen over the years with varying degrees of success. To properly do Leonard requires a director who can find a cinematic equivalent to his prose style. In the past, fine directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh have been able to find a common ground between the material and their own particular visions while equally fine directors like John Frankenheimer and Paul Schrader have floundered. Although not the most well-known of filmmakers, George Armitage was a perfect choice for the material for various reasons. His work as a writer/director for Roger Corman in the 1970’s (including the still jaw-dropping "Darktown Strutters") and later films like "Miami Blues" and "Grosse Pointe Blank" have demonstrated a ability to approach a genre plot with a weirdo sensibility and a facility for emphasizing character over plot-in other words, the very things that make Leonard’s work so compelling in the first place. The guy doesn’t work very often ("The Big Bounce" is only his third film since 1990), a shame since when he does get behind the camera, the results are almost always more interesting than those of his contemporaries.

"The Big Bounce" isn’t a ground-breaking masterpiece but it is a hugely enjoyable one-it is the kind of film that you miss in a theater (which you may well do this time, thanks to a largely uninspired ad campaign), only to catch on cable and wonder, "How did I miss this?" At a time when most films go from point A to point B in the simplest way possible, this is one that enjoys veering away from the story to pursue a bunch of weirdo tangents (including a game of dominoes involving Owen Wilson, Morgan Freeman, Willie Nelson and Harry Dean Stanton that could have been spun off into a movie of its own). As someone who sees all the movies, I cannot tell you how much I value a movie that has the confidence to strike out like that and for those who feel the same way, "The Big Bounce" will no doubt come as a blessed relief.

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

CRITIC DOCTOR DISCLAIMER

While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.

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