The Bachelor
**1/2
Rated on a 4-star
scale
Screening venue: Odeon (Liverpool City Centre)
Released in the UK by Entertainment Distribution on February 18, 2000;
certificate 12; 102 minutes; country of origin USA; aspect ratio
1.85:1
Directed by Gary Sinyor; produced by Bing
Howenstein, Lloyd Segan.
Written by Steve Cohen.
Photographed by Simon Archer; edited by Robert M
Reitano.
CAST.....
Chris O'Donnell..... Jimmie Shannon
Renee Zellweger..... Anne
Hal Holrook..... O'Dell
James Cromwell..... Priest
Artie Lange..... Marco
Edward Asner..... Gluckman
Peter Ustinov..... Grandfather
Deadlines should almost always be important in
thrillers, and never in comedies. Yet screenwriters insist on letting all
kinds of plots depend on them; not to provide suspense, because we know Hollywood
heroes always get wherever they need to be in the nick of time. Nor to show
how the characters react to the pressure, because it's usually just an excuse
for gags. Only, I guess, because it's what they were told to do in screenwriting
class.
"The Bachelor" is an excellent example,
a film with a lot of good ideas that never sits still long enough for any
of them to work. It should be a romantic comedy about a young man learning
the value of true love, but wastes a lot of time showing him running around
trying to beat the clock. He is Jimmie Shannon, the manager of a successful
pool-table factory, who is in love with the perks of being affluent, youthful
and unmarried.
But Jimmie (Chris O'Donnell) is getting anxious
that he may have to give up this lifestyle. Now that almost all of his friends
are married, and he's been dating the lovely Anne (Renne Zellweger) for three
whole years, it occurs to him that she expects him to follow suit. He tries
to pop the question, but obviously his heart's not in it, and Anne becomes
so offended that she gets on the first train out of town for time alone with
her understanding sister.
Then Jimmie discovers that his recently deceased
grandfather (Peter Ustinov) has bequeathed $100million to him on the condition
that he gets married by six o'clock on his thirtieth birthday. Wouldn't you
know it, this news arrives on the day before, so it's a race against time
for Jimmie's friends and lawyers to find Anne. In case they don't, Jimmie
must seek out all his other ex-girlfriends to see if any of them are prepared
to be his bride.
As he takes this wild journey through his past,
which doesn't produce any favourable results, Jimmie of course comes to
appreciate how much Anne really means to him. I wish it could mean something
to the audience, but in a huge storytelling blunder, the couple's three-year
history is spent entirely off-screen. As such, we've only ever seen them
when they've been fighting or awkward with one another, and we have no idea
if we like them enough to want them to be united. O'Donnell and Zellweger
are both attractive performers -- why aren't we allowed to find out whether
or not they have any chemistry together?
Probably because the filmmakers have no confidence
in any of their material, and perpetrate disastrous attempts to spice it
up. The awkward climax features hundreds of people in expensive set-pieces,
but isn't at all exciting or funny. Special guest stars such as Brooke Shields,
Mariah Carey and Jennifer Esposito have been brought in to play the
ex-girlfriends, but their presence is distracting. Even the beginning of
the movie, which features a narration of potentially witty observations about
bachelorhood, is ruined by a stupid special-effects accompaniment. Matters
are not helped by O'Donnell speaking in a deliberately goofy manner to underline
the fact this is a comedy.
It is Ustinov, though, who gives a really embarrassing
performance, as a man with unexplained oddities of body language and speech.
Hal Holbrook is pretty dreadful too, drifting in and out of an Irish accent,
and chain-smoking cigars with the amateurish trepidation of a kid taking
his first drag.
Aside from that, "The Bachelor" is an easy-to-watch
film that held my attention. The soundtrack is wonderful, the structure is
clear, the people and places look good. But all the way through I kept thinking
that it could have been better, and wishing it would stop getting side-tracked
by gimmicks. I must track down "Seven Chances", the Buster Keaton film it
was inspired by. It was made in the 1920s, when they knew how to tell a story
straightforwardly.
COPYRIGHT© 2000 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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