|
|
 this movie, made, was great, it has everything-wit, good humor, and action, i think the guys from swingers have done it again! i gave this movie 4 stars because i really enjoyed it and i think anybody who sees this will enjoy it too if you like wit,good humor and action!
This movie uses cliches to its advantage by turning them on their heads. It has a lot of darkly funny moments and a hell of a lot of tension, and it has nothing to do with Swingers. It stands alone as a fine, brilliantly conceived and executed flick.
Bobby [Favreau] has a messed up life. He's a professional boxer, but he isn't a very good one. To support himself, he's a driver for his live-in girlfriend, Jessica Famke Jenssen]. She's an exotic dancer, and he's the jealous type. That's not a good combination. After Bobby slugs a customer he thinks got too close to Jessica, he finds himself in trouble with his and Jessica's boss, Max [Peter Falk], a sort of minor league mob boss in LA. At home Bobby, who at heart is a good guy, must deal with Jessica's sensitive little girl. He's much more of a father to her than Jessica is a mother. Sensibly, Max relieves Bobby of his job of protecting Jessica by offering him something else. He wants him to see that a mysterious package is safely delivered to a British mobster in New York. Bobby agrees, but only if he can take his best friend, Ricky [Vaughn], along. It's an understatement to say that the trip does not go smoothly. The story may not sound like much. It certainly isn't original. Favreau wrote the screenplay, and this is a good example of success not in what you say, but how you say it. He also throws in this idea: Bobby and Ricky have been best friends since childhood. They have shared nearly everything. Now comes a great opportunity Bobby naturally wants to share with his friend. The problem is that Ricky is an idiot. He always messes up whatever he touches. He doesn't know how to shut up, he doesn't know when to keep the truth to himself, he thinks he's always right, and he can make life's simplest choices extremely complicated. I can relate to this comic setup. I think a lot of us can. Don't many of us have a friend or close relative who's not working with a full deck? I don't say this to be unkind. It's just a fact. And out of loyalty, compassion, habit and/or even out of love, don't we sometimes include that person in our affairs, even though common sense tells us not to? Such people may be a mess, but they can also inadvertantly make our lives somehow richer. Favreau's character is the central one, but, as a director, he choses to highlight Vaughn's Ricky. This works because Vaughn is such a remarkable actor. To be sure, he has a lot of idiosyncrasies which have played against him when he has tried to be a leading man in other projects. There is a wildness about him and just a touch of menace, but it's more of a menacing humorousness than an evil aura. Give him an oddball character like Ricky, and he's in his element. His genius lies in his ability to take such a goof ball and make him real and endearing. A lesser actor would have made Ricky so obnoxious we never could have related to him. That, in turn, would have ruined the movie.
I went into this one giving Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't going to judge "Made" solely against "Swingers", but rather on its own merits. Well, I needn't have worried about objectivity; Jon and Vince want you to know and love "Swingers". Furthermore, they want you to come along for the ride as they cheerily subvert that much-loved movie. The in-jokes fly fast and furious as "Made" parodies and deconstructs the "Swingers" mystique. Some clues to this are subtle: the limousine the boys ride around in is emblazoned with the license plate 'DBLDN11'. Sharp eyed "Swingers" fans (actually, you don't have to be sharp eyed at all; the plate makes at least a dozen clear appearances in the film) will know what that means. Other clues are more clandestine. An early scene has Vaughn's character Ricky expressing a desire to look for some "honeys". Whereas the same request from "Swingers" Trent Walker would have resulted in said "honeys" arriving swiftly, Ricky's request is met with much scorn. Small examples like these are scattered throughout the film. Favreau, who wrote "Swingers" and gets to add a director credit to his resume with "Made", shows that he still has a certain flair for dialogue. There are no certain catchphrases here (although I'm going to do my best to help "Color Me That" catch on), but the characters are still defined by what they say and how they say it. Favreau manages to construct a plausible story here, one that does its best to right itself after several times threatening to veer off-track. He leaves enough holes in the character's pasts (why does Bobby feel the need to protect Ricky?) to give them a certain mysterious depth, but not too much or else they wouldn't be as much fun. Favreau the director acquits himself well. He has his own way to setup scenes and frame shots, and quickly develops a visual style that is appealing and effective. However, there were moments when his camera moved a tad too much, but those moments were sparse enough to overlook. Favreau the actor, while taking the less showy part for himself, is really the foundation of the movie. He resigns himself to seething quietly when Ricky goes off on one of his rants. His most effective scenes are with Chloe (Makenze Vega), the daughter of his girlfriend (Famke Janssen). His pseudo-father figure is classy and protective, and their scenes together are quite sweet. Vince Vaughn delivered one of my all-time favourite film performances with his sexy-cool Trent Walker in "Swingers". It's one of those performances where the whole movie sags until he comes back on the screen. Here, you think he's going back to the same place. But Vaughn (and Favreau's writing) quickly subverts that. Other than the line mentioned above, there's at least one other telling moment. Ricky and Bobby fly to New York, and spend their first flight in first class. Ricky, a bumbling screw-up, repeatedly pesters the stewardess with asinine questions. He thinks he's being charming, but the stewardess and Bobby and the whole audience knows he isn't. When he inevitably gets shot down, I realized what Ricky was all about. He's the type of guy, uncool on his own, who's seen "Swingers" too many times, identified with Trent a bit too much, and now thinks he's cool by association. This little exchange with the stewardess mirrors a similar one that Trent had with a Vegas waitress. Where Trent's obnoxiousness came off as charming and attractive (his waitress falls for him hard), Ricky's derivative obnoxiousness is just... well... obnoxious. It's a great bit of self-reflexivity that Vaughn pulls off perfectly. His motormouth act nearly becomes annoying, but Vaughn knows exactly how to reign Ricky in so that he's purely entertaining. The supporting cast is littered with some low-key, but effective performances. Vincent Pastore plays the limo driver with a hint of Zen madness. Faizon Love, as a burly henchman with a coke problem, looks tough but is really just as clueless as his charges; he's some fun. The aforementioned Famke Janssen, as a stripper, has little to do, and looks wretched doing it. Peter Falk manages to play his small time hood with both over-the-top glee and subtle irritation. The most notable of the supporting characters is a showboating gangster named Ruiz, played by the noted thespian Sean Combs. Puffy actually manages to imbue some menace and some stylish cool into Ruiz. He doesn't necessarily bring anything new or original to the role; it's a textbook gangster part that he easily pulls off. (N.B. Look for small, dialogue-less cameos by Jonathan Silverman and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello) "Made" is littered with some fine comic moments. The opening boxing scene, splayed out neatly over the credits, has the audience laughing from the get go. The 'Red Dragon' scene will have you squirming incredulously in your seat. There's an outrageous moment about halfway through, outside a club, that will have the "Saved by the Bell"-literate viewer grinning with delight. And the denouement is equal parts ridiculous and surreal, while being oddly touching. It neatly subverts the rest of the movie just like "Swingers" final scene did. For these reasons and more, I found myself enjoying "Made" tremendously, and impressed with Favreau and Vaughn, who are now two-for-two in my book. I'll follow them down whatever road they choose next. |
