Reviews by Nathan Weinbender
Hamlet 2The title “Hamlet 2” is funny. That it is the name of a high school play that inspires riots, protests and First Amendment arguments is funnier. “Hamlet 2,” the movie, alas, is not quite as hilarious as its concept, or as its title, suggests. It’s an affable comedy, weird and goofy and occasionally dirty-minded, that never quite pays off what it sets up: When you’re told that the play-within-the-movie will feature group sex between Jesus and Hillary Clinton, you might expect it to be more outrageous than it turns out to be.
The play—“Hamlet 2,” that is—springs from the demented mind of Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), a former commercial actor (you may remember him from appearances in ads for juicing machines and prescription-strength herpes medications) who has abandoned his dreams of becoming a star and now works as a drama teacher in a Tucson, Arizona, high school.
Marschz (his name is pronounced in a way you wouldn’t expect) has serious delusions of grandeur: He considers himself, first and foremost, an underappreciated, under-nourished genius, although his drama class is made up of only two students, his stage adaptations of Hollywood movies (“Erin Brockovich” and “Mississippi Burning,” for instance) are the laughing stock of the town, and he’s consistently bludgeoned by the school newspaper’s resident drama critic.
Dana lives with his wife Brie (Catherine Keener), a perpetual drunk who resents her husband for being infertile, and a dunderheaded border played by David Arquette. He rollerblades to work every day (no surprise: he falls down a lot), and spends his time watching “Mr. Holland’s Opus” and “Dead Poets’ Society,” dreaming of becoming an inspirational, groundbreaking teacher and studying methods for motivating troubled students.
When he’s told the school is making budget cuts and the drama department is on the chopping block, Dana is devastated, and he decides to write an original play that will save his class and will finally get him some recognition. The fruits of his labor are the “Hamlet” sequel, which opens with the Danish prince going back in time to save his mother from unintentionally poisoning herself. He’s accompanied by Jesus (played by Dana), who has a “lean swimmer’s body” that makes Gertrude swoon (cue the song “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus”).
Because of its content, and because of Dana’s mediocre track record, the school board doesn’t want “Hamlet 2” to see the light of day (“You have Satan French-kissing the Preisdent!” objects the principal). Dana relents, as does his predominately Latino cast, and they band together to keep the play from shutting down. When the incident makes the papers, a brassy ACLU attorney named Cricket Feldstein (Amy Poehler) shows up to defend Dana. “We’ve got a First Amendment case on our hands,” she tells him, adding, “If you’re wondering about the ‘Feldstein,’ it’s because I married a Jew.”
All of this is funny, and I laughed pretty frequently, especially during the opening scenes. But the screenplay, written by Pam Brady and director Andrew Fleming, too often shortchanges its material, promising more in the beginning than it eventually delivers in the end. It sets up interesting supporting characters and never develops them—Keener and Arquette have a few amusing bits before being relegated to the background and eventually written out altogether, and Poehler, who is a real comedic spitfire, doesn’t have enough material to work with (her total screen time here is about six minutes).
The film builds to the big production, which itself is disappointing. We only see two or three scenes from the play, and what we do see, save for the exuberant “Sexy Jesus” number (watch for Jesus moon walking over water), it’s not particularly inspired.
The screenplay has been co-written by Pam Brady, who collaborated on the scripts for “Team America: World Police” and the “South Park” movie, and “Hamlet 2” is nowhere near as clever and biting as those pictures were. It relies more on dumb yuks and pratfalls than satire, which is too bad, because I imagine Brady could have found something truly insightful to say about artistic censorship. If the movie does parody anything well, it’s high school drama teachers.
As Marschz, Steve Coogan is brilliant, and, like the theater director in “Waiting for Guffman,” there’s something inherently amusing about his heedless enthusiasm toward things that are bound to fail, about his ability to over-think and overanalyze everything until molehills are mountains. You’ve gotta admire a guy who actually casts himself as Jesus because he can relate to having a troubled childhood and a domineering father.
I almost forgot to mention Elisabeth Shue (“Leaving Las Vegas,” “The Karate Kid”), who turns up as herself and is one of the movie’s brightest spots. Fed up with the artifice of Hollywood, she’s left showbiz and has followed her dream of becoming a nurse (in real life, Shue is still a working actress). When she’s asked what she misses most about the movie business, she’s quick to answer: the love scenes.
Having seen Dana’s play, she’s inspired to call her agent. “It’s Elisabeth,” she says into the phone. “I’m ready to act again!” Her enthusiasm wanes a little. “It’s Elisabeth...Elisabeth Shue?” She’s a good sport.
The play—“Hamlet 2,” that is—springs from the demented mind of Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), a former commercial actor (you may remember him from appearances in ads for juicing machines and prescription-strength herpes medications) who has abandoned his dreams of becoming a star and now works as a drama teacher in a Tucson, Arizona, high school.
Marschz (his name is pronounced in a way you wouldn’t expect) has serious delusions of grandeur: He considers himself, first and foremost, an underappreciated, under-nourished genius, although his drama class is made up of only two students, his stage adaptations of Hollywood movies (“Erin Brockovich” and “Mississippi Burning,” for instance) are the laughing stock of the town, and he’s consistently bludgeoned by the school newspaper’s resident drama critic.
Dana lives with his wife Brie (Catherine Keener), a perpetual drunk who resents her husband for being infertile, and a dunderheaded border played by David Arquette. He rollerblades to work every day (no surprise: he falls down a lot), and spends his time watching “Mr. Holland’s Opus” and “Dead Poets’ Society,” dreaming of becoming an inspirational, groundbreaking teacher and studying methods for motivating troubled students.
When he’s told the school is making budget cuts and the drama department is on the chopping block, Dana is devastated, and he decides to write an original play that will save his class and will finally get him some recognition. The fruits of his labor are the “Hamlet” sequel, which opens with the Danish prince going back in time to save his mother from unintentionally poisoning herself. He’s accompanied by Jesus (played by Dana), who has a “lean swimmer’s body” that makes Gertrude swoon (cue the song “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus”).
Because of its content, and because of Dana’s mediocre track record, the school board doesn’t want “Hamlet 2” to see the light of day (“You have Satan French-kissing the Preisdent!” objects the principal). Dana relents, as does his predominately Latino cast, and they band together to keep the play from shutting down. When the incident makes the papers, a brassy ACLU attorney named Cricket Feldstein (Amy Poehler) shows up to defend Dana. “We’ve got a First Amendment case on our hands,” she tells him, adding, “If you’re wondering about the ‘Feldstein,’ it’s because I married a Jew.”
All of this is funny, and I laughed pretty frequently, especially during the opening scenes. But the screenplay, written by Pam Brady and director Andrew Fleming, too often shortchanges its material, promising more in the beginning than it eventually delivers in the end. It sets up interesting supporting characters and never develops them—Keener and Arquette have a few amusing bits before being relegated to the background and eventually written out altogether, and Poehler, who is a real comedic spitfire, doesn’t have enough material to work with (her total screen time here is about six minutes).
The film builds to the big production, which itself is disappointing. We only see two or three scenes from the play, and what we do see, save for the exuberant “Sexy Jesus” number (watch for Jesus moon walking over water), it’s not particularly inspired.
The screenplay has been co-written by Pam Brady, who collaborated on the scripts for “Team America: World Police” and the “South Park” movie, and “Hamlet 2” is nowhere near as clever and biting as those pictures were. It relies more on dumb yuks and pratfalls than satire, which is too bad, because I imagine Brady could have found something truly insightful to say about artistic censorship. If the movie does parody anything well, it’s high school drama teachers.
As Marschz, Steve Coogan is brilliant, and, like the theater director in “Waiting for Guffman,” there’s something inherently amusing about his heedless enthusiasm toward things that are bound to fail, about his ability to over-think and overanalyze everything until molehills are mountains. You’ve gotta admire a guy who actually casts himself as Jesus because he can relate to having a troubled childhood and a domineering father.
I almost forgot to mention Elisabeth Shue (“Leaving Las Vegas,” “The Karate Kid”), who turns up as herself and is one of the movie’s brightest spots. Fed up with the artifice of Hollywood, she’s left showbiz and has followed her dream of becoming a nurse (in real life, Shue is still a working actress). When she’s asked what she misses most about the movie business, she’s quick to answer: the love scenes.
Having seen Dana’s play, she’s inspired to call her agent. “It’s Elisabeth,” she says into the phone. “I’m ready to act again!” Her enthusiasm wanes a little. “It’s Elisabeth...Elisabeth Shue?” She’s a good sport.
Grade: B-
Directed by Andrew Fleming. Written by Pam Brady and Fleming. Starring Steve Coogan, Catherine Keener, Amy Poehler, David Arquette and Elisabeth Shue. R; 92m.
Henry Poole Is Here
Henry Poole Is HereImages of religious figures turn up in the strangest places, don’t they? They’ve been seen on the backs of highway signs, in reflections and shadows, on grilled cheese sandwiches.
Now, in “Henry Poole Is Here,” there’s a water stain on the side of poor Henry’s house that, according to his Catholic neighbor, resembles the face of Jesus.
It’s a miracle, she tells him, but it’s really more of an inconvenience for Henry (Luke Wilson), who wakes up every morning to find strangers congregating in his backyard, clamoring over the stain. Henry is a stern, seemingly impenetrable man, the type who believes there’s a logical explanation for everything. When a character’s poor vision is cured after she touches the stain, he assumes that it’s merely a coincidence.
Why is he such a killjoy? Well, it’s soon discovered that he has an Unnamed Terminal Illness, a fact that we figure out prior to being told. Actually, we’re always just a few steps ahead of the screenplay, telegraphing every new plot development long before it comes.
For instance, what are the odds that Henry and one of his neighbors, a pretty single mother played by Radha Mitchell, will fall in love? And what are the odds that the neighbor’s six-year-old daughter, who hasn’t said a word for months, will be talking by the end of the film? And what are the odds that Henry comes to accept his fate and his spirituality, transforming from a curmudgeon to a sweetheart in a matter of days?
“Henry Poole Is Here” is a completely harmless, good-hearted picture, but it’s so heavy-handed, so sanctimonious, so eager to move us that it soon becomes unbearable. I can imagine a moving, uplifting, intelligent film could have been made from this material, but this script never rises above the basic level of made-for-TV heartstring-tugging. Director Mark Pellington doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the word “nuance,” a lot of which this movie desperately needed.
Grade: C
Directed by Mark Pellington. Written by Albert Torres. Starring Luke Wilson, Radha Mitchell, Adriana Barraza, Morgan Lily, Rachel Seiferth and George Lopez. PG; 100m.
Now, in “Henry Poole Is Here,” there’s a water stain on the side of poor Henry’s house that, according to his Catholic neighbor, resembles the face of Jesus.
It’s a miracle, she tells him, but it’s really more of an inconvenience for Henry (Luke Wilson), who wakes up every morning to find strangers congregating in his backyard, clamoring over the stain. Henry is a stern, seemingly impenetrable man, the type who believes there’s a logical explanation for everything. When a character’s poor vision is cured after she touches the stain, he assumes that it’s merely a coincidence.
Why is he such a killjoy? Well, it’s soon discovered that he has an Unnamed Terminal Illness, a fact that we figure out prior to being told. Actually, we’re always just a few steps ahead of the screenplay, telegraphing every new plot development long before it comes.
For instance, what are the odds that Henry and one of his neighbors, a pretty single mother played by Radha Mitchell, will fall in love? And what are the odds that the neighbor’s six-year-old daughter, who hasn’t said a word for months, will be talking by the end of the film? And what are the odds that Henry comes to accept his fate and his spirituality, transforming from a curmudgeon to a sweetheart in a matter of days?
“Henry Poole Is Here” is a completely harmless, good-hearted picture, but it’s so heavy-handed, so sanctimonious, so eager to move us that it soon becomes unbearable. I can imagine a moving, uplifting, intelligent film could have been made from this material, but this script never rises above the basic level of made-for-TV heartstring-tugging. Director Mark Pellington doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the word “nuance,” a lot of which this movie desperately needed.
Grade: C
Directed by Mark Pellington. Written by Albert Torres. Starring Luke Wilson, Radha Mitchell, Adriana Barraza, Morgan Lily, Rachel Seiferth and George Lopez. PG; 100m.
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