Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (Opening Friday, April 25)

Rating: 8 out of 10
Cast:
John Cho as Harold Lee
Kal Penn as Kumar Patel
Rob Corddry as Ron Fox
Roger Bart as Dr. Beecher
Neil Patrick Harris as Neil Patrick Harris
Danneel Harris as Vanessa
David Krumholtz as Goldstein
Eddie Kaye Thomas as Rosenberg
Jack Conley as Deputy Frye
Eric Winter as Colton
Paula Garcés as Maria
Jon Reep as Raymus
Missi Pyle as Raylene
Mark Munoz as Cyrus
James Adomian as George W. Bush
Beverly D'Angelo as Sally
Echo Valley as Tits Hemmingway

Directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg

Summary:
More tasteless fun from the ethnic stoners who bring their own unique socio-political slant to the typical stoner road comedy.

Story:
Harold Lee and Kumar Patel (John Cho, Kal Penn) are on their way to Amsterdam, chasing after Harold's dream girl, but after an incident on an airplane, they're imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay as terrorists. Even though they're able to escape--as the title would suggest--they still have to face an overzealous federal agent (Rob Corddry) who'll stop at nothing to catch them and send them back into Gitmo.

Analysis:
As often as there are sequels to comedies that no one but the producers and their expensive trophy wives may want, and as many times as there are great comedies that never get much-deserved sequels, every once in a while the stars align and a genuinely funny but mostly overlooked comedy gets a deserved sequel that actually surpasses the original movie. That is certainly the case with "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay," which follows where the story left off four years earlier in the theatrical flop "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" with a much more political slant to mirror the climate in the country since George W. was reelected.

Writer/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg certainly know their audience for this sequel, and it might not necessarily be the stoner fratboys some might expect. Certainly, there's an aspect of the movie that will appeal to the fans of Kevin Smith's sense of humor, but it's not just a series of gags and encounters like "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." There's also a strong story that takes place the day after the last movie as Harold and Kumar's plans to go to Amsterdam gets sidetracked by the heightened air security and their ethnicity, as they're accused of being Arab and North Korean terrorists and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where they experience the horrors explored in many recent docs. The sequel also offers a surprising amount of romance for the duo, not just Harold chasing his dream girl Maria, but Kumar proves himself to be a romantic with his feelings for Vanessa (the absolutely adorable Daneel Harris), the ex-girlfriend who first got him high who's left her wild girl days behind her to marry an ultra-conservative jerk from Texas, who just happens to be the only guy who can get the duo out of their new mess.

Cho and Penn show a lot of growth as actors since the first movie, but surprisingly, Harold and Kumar don't imbibe in nearly as many drugs as they did in the first movie, maybe because they're too busy running for their life. The road comedy humor from the first movie is heightened by the fact that you have an Indian and a Korean traveling through the deep South, allowing them to play with Southern stereotypes, whether it's meeting a hunter or crashing a KKK meeting.

Most of the film's funniest wrongness comes in the form of Rob Corddry, a racist Federal agent who uses blatant cliches against the ethnic types he interrogates. He is absolutely hilarious when doing so, getting the biggest laughs in every scene, countered well by Roger Bart as his conscientious "good cop" partner.

There's a lot of silliness and dumb physical humor along the way--as much as you try to resist, you'll probably end up laughing anyway--but there's also enough sharp political commentary amidst the gratuitous nudity and the not so clever bathroom humor to not make you not feel so bad about it.

It's hard to determine whether this sequel works as a standalone movie, since some of the funniest bits are the nods to the first movie that only true fans will appreciate. There's lots of callbacks, and not just NPH (Neil Patrick Harris) who has a far bigger role as himself, a celebrity who gets more out of control the more drugs he takes. When he picks up the guys and treats them at a whorehouse, things go downhill from there. One of the funniest bits though is a flashback to years earlier when Harold first meets Vanessa and we get to see what the guys were like before they discovered marijuana.

The movie does lose a bit of steam as it goes along, maybe because some of the funniest jokes are in the first hour, but the whole things culminates in an appearance by the Commander in Chief that's more than slightly amusing even if it's not the most convincing look or sound-a-like.

The Bottom Line:
This may be the most deliberately unapologetic politically-incorrect movie ever made, and it's so wrong in so many ways. With the current political climate, this might be exactly what Americans need to be able to laugh with Harold and Kumar at our own social morays and ineptitude. Either way, this is easily the funniest movie since "Superbad" and a more than satisfying sequel.

88 Minutes (Opening Friday, April 18)

Rating: 5 out of 10
Cast:
Al Pacino as Dr. John Gramm
Alicia Witt as Kim Cummings
Amy Brenneman as Shelly Barnes
William Forsythe as Special Agent Frank Parks
Leelee Sobieski as Lauren Douglas
Benjamin McKenzie as Mike Stemp
Deborah Kara Unger as Carol Johnson
Neal McDonough as Jon Forster
Leah Cairns as Sara Pollard
Stephen Moyer as Guy LaForge

Review:
The Hollywood style of filmmaking has been widely and often criticized for its focus on style over substance, its obsession with marketing and packaging, trying to boil good stories down to just the right formula of plot points, act beats, story hooks and movie stars. Every so often, a film comes along that defies expectations and makes all those elements work together so seamlessly you can't help but think maybe those executives know something after all. More often, though, we get a bland piece of formulaic pabulum like "88 Minutes."

John Gramm (Al Pacino) is a forensic psychiatrist and the FBI's go-to guy when they need an expert to testify to a killer's motivations and thought process. When his testimony condemns would-be serial killer Jon Forster (Neal McDonough), Forster vows revenge, and it looks like he might get it when Gramm begins receiving threatening phone calls claiming he has only 88 minutes to live, despite the fact Forster has been locked away on death row for years.

Directed with unfeeling, uncaring, neutral in every way competence by veteran studio director Jon Avnet ("Up Close and Personal"), "88 Minutes" is a bland a piece of Hollywood dross as has ever been made. I can't say it's actually bad, that would require caring about it in some way that is impossible to do.

There has been some thought put into Gramm and his life. He's afraid of commitment and obsessed with security, escaping into a lonely life surrounded by attractive women he refuses to have any sort of real relationship with and a seemingly infinite number of digital locks. While Gramm himself harbors a lot of Hollywood's worst clichés for cop characters (afraid of commitment, outside the system, a maverick on the edge) the clues actually do add up to something a bit more than that, some deep emotional wounds of the past. We know because it's explained to us in the most heavy-handed fashion possible in the films perfect drumbeat of Syd Field style screenwriting: plot point, plot point, character moment, plot point, plot point, character moment.

And when I say character moment, what I really mean is back-story exposition, because the characters are about as flat as they get. What they do is who they are – one's a grad student, one's a lesbian assistant, one's a college dean, and that is the sum total of who they are. They're descriptors, not people.

It's no wonder this movie sat on a shelf for two years, I can't imagine anyone going to see it either. Pacino's not really the draw he used to be and he's certainly not doing his best work here. He's doing his usual wild man routine for most of the film, occasionally giving a glimpse of Gramm's intellect and tiredness of soul, but only occasionally. The rest of the time it's all autopilot.

"88 Minutes" is a textbook Hollywood thriller, in the worst possible sense of the phrase. If that's your thing, more power to you, but there's got to be better ways to spend your time.

The Forbidden Kingdom (Opening Friday, April 18)

Rating: 6.5 out of 10
Cast:
Jet Li as The Silent Monk
Jackie Chan as Lu Yan
Michael Angarano as Jason Tripitikas
Yifei Liu as Golden Sparrow
Collin Chou as Jade Warlord
Bingbing Li as Ni Chang
Morgan Benoit as Lupo
Deshun Wang as Jade Emperor

Review:
Essentially, it's "The Wizard of Oz" with kung-fu instead of singing and dancing.

Jason (Michael Angarano) is your average teenager in every meaning of the phrase, from his first forays with girls to his rich fantasy life, in Jason's case borne up by his love of the old kung fu movies he gets from the local pawn shop. It turns out his fantasy life might too rich, though, when a late night robbery goes horribly wrong and Jason wakes up to find himself actually in ancient mythological China.

As ideas go, it's not a bad one, but it is going to be entirely dependent on its execution, and that's where "The Forbidden Kingdom" fumbles a bit. It's dealing with a lot of clichés of big-budget Hollywood filmmaking and wuxia films, but lacks a lot of the charm of either.

Characterization is based largely on archetypes, which can work, but only if through a great deal of charisma, and casting that is spot on. Angarano plays Jason the awkward youth perfectly, it's a role he's been doing for almost ten years now and it's like he was born to do it. Unfortunately, it also makes it absolutely impossible to take him seriously when he starts doing kung fu.

Luckily (depending on your point of view) that doesn't really matter because while "The Forbidden Kingdom" seems to want to be a classic hero's journey, it certainly starts out that way, Jason stops being the 'hero' the second Jackie Chan shows up. Despite a lot of back-and-forthing from director Rob Minkoff, that never really changes, because "The Forbidden Kingdom" isn't really about Jason. It's about Jackie Chan and Jet Li being in the same film together, and that is it.

To be fair, Chan and Li appearing together are unquestionably "The Forbidden Kingdom's" biggest draw, and the filmmakers would fools to pretend otherwise. However, since they are the focus of the film, we quickly begin to wonder why Jason is around at all and what are we doing spending so much time with him. The idea seems to be for him to be a point of view character for American audiences and that it would be easier to empathize with an American teenager than with the actual stars of the movie, which begs the question why would they rely on their stars to sell the movie, but not to anchor the story. The result is, except for a pair of bookend sequences that are the weakest parts about the film, Jason spends most of his time getting thrown around or out of the way while Li and Chan go about the kung fu business.

Which it has to be said is as good as you might expect. Veteran choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping has lost none of skill and Chan and Li put their all into it, with some able help from Collin Chou ("The Matrix Reloaded") as the villainous Jade Warlord and his chief assassin, Bingbing Li. To their credit, Minkoff and screenwriter Joe Fusco haven't shied away from some of the over-the-top aspects of the wuxia genre, like Bingbing Li's prehensile hair, and Chinese mythology (the plot hinges around "Journey to the West's" Monkey King) that haven't been widely sampled in America yet. It's actually a pretty faithful rendition of the genre, albeit one that has been heavily Americanized. But even in the kung fu, "The Forbidden Kingdom's" greatest strength is also its biggest weakness.

Because Chan and Li hold such stature in the kung fu genre, a lot of very careful positioning is taken to make sure that one never tops the other. The result is that both are playing versions of the same character, each in their own way; Chan does a version of his Drunken Master character, and Li's monk is not too far off from "Once Upon a Time in China." The idea of them as archetypes from their own movies actually works, it fits perfectly with the idea of the world as a reflection of Jason's unconscious (and it also lets Minkoff get away with some atrocious in-universe rule breaking as the characters switch back and forth from Chinese to English at whim). But the end result is that one of these characters is redundant, and neither can ever get the better of the other. Even their much ballyhooed fight sequence, which is quite good, is a very careful balancing act aimed at making sure neither star looks bad, and that keeps it from being what it could have been, and that sums up the film as well. It pales, for instance, in comparison to a similarly built up sequence between Li and Donnie Yen in "Hero." The lack of conflict is a bad way to try and create drama, and it shows.

The filmmakers must realize this because they end up relying on a lot of tried and true (by which I mean boring) tricks to get them through from one action sequence to the next. Tremendous amount of exposition to try and create the appearance of conflict - it seems like every time someone turns around they have a prophecy to relate, and a token love (Yifei Liu) who appears out of thin air and adds absolutely nothing to the story, except a girl. An argument could be made that his fits into the movie as Jason's fantasy idea as well, but it's all just a little too bland.

If you're a big Jackie Chan and/or Jet Li fan, you might as well forget everything I just said. This movie was made for you and you should go see it on the big screen once. But because of a complete lack of storytelling effort from the filmmakers, there's no reason to ever see it more than once.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Opening Friday, April 18)

Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Cast:
Ben Stein
Richard Dawkins
Eugeni Scott
John Lennox
David Berlinski
Richard Sternberg
Caroline Crocker
Guillermo Gonzalez
Mark Souder
Christopher Hitchens

Directed by Nathan Frankowski

Summary:
The filmmakers' intentions are kept deliberately vague--is this about free speech or about teaching religion in the classroom?--but it's a surprisingly entertaining and informative doc that at least tries to address the debate over intelligent design from another angle.

Story:
Ben Stein takes a look at intelligent design and how scientists and teachers who've dared to address it have come under attack from the scientific community using Darwin's theories of evolution.

Analysis:
The subject of intelligent design is one that has sparked a lot of controversy and hopefully, this review won't bring out the loonies on either side of the debate, because personally, I don't feel like religion and faith is something that can or should be argued or debated on the internet, or anywhere else for that matter. And yet, this film has already been the center of many heated debates and anger from the scientific community, making it difficult to analyze it without taking into account one's own opinions about creation, evolution, God and religion.

The crux of the film centers around a series of high-profile firings in the academic world of respected scientists and educators who dared breach the subject of intelligent design. Actor, comedian and reputed intellectual Ben Stein decided to investigate these incidents, taking the Michael Moore approach by providing the film's personality as he travels around the globe talking to scientists and philosophers on both sides of the heated debate. Essentially, intelligent design tends to be immediately written off as "creationism," that it comes strictly from a religious faith-based point of view that has no business in science. Stein tries to prove otherwise by showing how the scientific community has been closed-minded in their treatment of those who address it while following their own "theories" of evolution.

On the surface, Ben Stein seems to be pushing for open debate and discussion rather than the scientific community bullying anyone who offers disparate ideas, but he doesn't exactly go about this in the best way, especially when the film shows Darwin's influence on the Nazi ideals and comparing Darwinists to communists, both extremely flawed and overly flip arguments that hurt the film more than it helps. Stein's intentions are also somewhat deceptive, because while he never outright says "intelligent design should be taught in the classrooms," the film's marketing campaign seems to say otherwise, something that's difficult to ignore when attempting to analyze the film on its own merits.

It's far too easy to superimpose one's own agenda or beliefs on a film like this due to the amount of contradictory information being spooled to the viewer via Stein's interviews. "Expelled" will probably be embraced by religious fundamentalists as surely as it will be trashed by the liberal media, both for the wrong reasons, and instead of solving the problems, it will just add to them, since the people in the scientific community who might gain something from being more open-minded will already have written this film off as propaganda.

There's more than a little irony to the way things have changed in the hundreds of years since the time when scientists were being persecuted by the Church, and going by Stein's take on the matter, things have turned fully the other way. This seems the most evident in the film's climax where Stein faces off with Richard Dawkins, a scientist who has gone so far as to disprove the existence of G-d--we'll probably have to read his book for his arguments--though by that point, we're no closer to getting to the bottom of why the educators were fired.

Technically, the film could be better, as the camerawork is somewhat shaky during the interviews, a problem that's resolved as the film progresses. Too much cutesy film footage is edited into the interviews to try to keep things moving at a brisk pace amidst a lot of scientific babble, but this often colors the information and responses to try and sway viewers towards the film's biased viewpoint.

Personally, I don't think either camp's argument is completely on the money and ultimately, the film's message about opening communication between the two camps seems like the most viable solution. Although this documentary does little to prove or disprove any of the theories (scientific or otherwise) from either camp--many of which you'd have to be a MENSA member to fully understand--one probably shouldn't write the movie off merely based on their own personal beliefs. If nothing else, it's an often entertaining conversation and debate starter, which might have been Ben Stein's purpose all along even if there might have also been ulterior motives lying beneath the film's heady surface.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Opening Friday, April 18)

Rating: 8 out of 10
Cast:
Jason Segel as Peter Bretter
Kristen Bell as Sarah Marshall
Mila Kunis as Rachel Jansen
Russell Brand as Aldous Snow
Bill Hader as Brian Bretter
Liz Cackowski as Liz Bretter
Maria Thayer as Wyoma
Jack McBrayer as Darald
Davon McDonald as Dwayne the Bartender
Steve Landesberg as Dr. Rosenbaum
Jonah Hill as Matthew the Waiter
Paul Rudd as Chuck
Kala Alexander as Greg

Directed by Nicholas Stoller

Summary:
Finding humor in situations we've all been through, and a few that only haunt our worst nightmares, Jason Segel and Nick Stoller make their mark in the Apatow-verse with a very funny date movie.

Story:
Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) is a successful television composer who's been dating hot television star Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) for five years until she suddenly breaks up with him. Despondent, Peter decides to get away and go to Hawaii, but once he arrives there, he learns that Sarah and her new boyfriend, rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) have also come to Hawaii on vacation. Will Peter ever get over Sarah and might the resort's ultra-cute front desk girl (Mila Kunis) help him?

Analysis:
We've almost reached the point where people might start wondering if Judd Apatow is on some sort of vengeance quest to get back the foolish mortals who cancelled his two television shows "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared," because here we have another member of the cast of those shows receiving a starring vehicle, one from his own script no less. Jason Segel is charming and likeable with a personality somewhere between a young Tom Hanks and Judge Reinhold so making the leap to leading man isn't too big a leap, and working with director Nick Stoller (another "Undeclared" alum), they do a lot with a fairly slim premise.

We first meet Segel's Peter Bretter, a Hollywood composer, when he's ready to take the next step in his relationship with his girlfriend, television star Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), but she breaks up with him unexpectedly, leaving him a complete mess. Deciding to take some time off, he goes to Hawaii for what will turn out to be the worst vacation ever, as he continuously runs into Sarah and her new boyfriend, a pretentious British rocker. Fortunately, Peter quickly makes friends with Rachel, the cute girl who works the hotel's front desk, played by Mila Kunis from "That '70s Show," and she tries to help him forget how sucky his life has become since being dumped.

Taking a similar approach as "Knocked Up" in taking a real-life situation and mixing in equal parts raunchy humor and true heart-felt sentiment, Segel's first movie turns something we've all experienced, a bad break-up, and turned it into the catalyst for some very funny moments involving a sadsack trying to get over his hot girlfriend with the help of people he meets in an unfamiliar setting.

While the results might not be nearly as laugh-a-minute as previous Apatow productions, Segel and Stoller do a really good job creating an environment that keeps things moving, while Segel himself is never afraid to do whatever it takes to get laughs, often at his own expense. He certainly has little reason to shy away from the amount of full frontal nudity we get from him, although most guys would probably have preferred more naked women. Still, with all the sex and nudity, the movie never goes overboard even as it never pulls punches, and there's plenty of scenes that wouldn't have been nearly as funny if toned down, like an awkward sexual reunion between Pete and Sarah late in the movie that might hit way too close to home with some viewers.

Even so, Kristen Bell is the weaker link in this dysfunctional duo, because other than looking hot in a pink bikini, there's nothing about her character that makes you understand why Peter might be so stuck up on her especially when presented with the adorable Mila Kunis as another option. Russell Brand is also very funny playing Aldous Snow, a stereotypical British rock star with altruistic ideals, kind of a cross between Johnny Depp and Bono, who's everything that Peter is not.

What really keeps the laughs rolling are how Segel and Stoller have surrounded the main quartet with some of the funniest members from the Apatow-verse with Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill taking point as two of the island's wacky inhabitants. These characters end up being far more than mere cameos, both of them making repeat appearances to liven things up whenever the movie needs a quick injection of the funny. Hill is up to his normal standards as the outspoken waiter who's a stalkerish fan of Sarah's new rocker boyfriend, while Rudd is even more spaced-out as the world's highest surfing coach. Bill Hader has a few funny moments as he pops up from time to time to offer some brotherly advice but it's a fairly insubstantial role, allowing the likes of Jack McBrayer to steal the movie as a virginal newlywed on honeymoon and Davon McDonald getting some of the funniest quips with some of the few memorable and repeatable lines. (My favorite one is "Are those sad tissues or happy tissues?")

As with Apatow's "Knocked Up," Segel and Stoller takes the movie on a lot of silly tangents by recreating some of Sarah Marshall's ridiculous knock-off television shows and Peter's dream gig of putting on a Dracula musical with puppets, something that's even funnier when they actually do it. In the end, the inexperience of the creators is evident because the film isn't as strongly executed as "Knocked Up" or "Superbad" possibly because so much of the humor involves vignettes of Peter's interaction with Sarah or the other island inhabitants, but it all takes place within a fairly standard Hollywood rom-com plot structure. Still, when it comes down to it, the movie is funny, very funny, and the film's flimsy structure and weak third act is forgivable, since otherwise, it's a very sweet movie with lots of new and original ideas. While it doesn't quite achieve the comedy perfection of "Superbad," there's enough potential in this first movie by Segel and Stoller that one can certainly look forward to future comedy collaborations from the duo

Chaos Theory (Opening Friday, April 11)

Rating: 8 out of 10
Cast:
Ryan Reynolds as Frank Allen
Emily Mortimer as Susan Allen
Stuart Townsend as Buddy Endrow
Sarah Chalke as Paula Crowe
Mike Erwin as Ed
Constance Zimmer as Peg the Teacher
Matreya Fedor as Jesse Allen (7 years)
Elisabeth Harnois as Jesse Allen
Chris Martin as Damon
Jovanna Huguet as Maid of Honor
Christopher Jacot as Simon / Best Man
Alessandro Juliani as Ken
Lisa Calder as Sherri
Ty Olsson as Evil Ferryman
Jocelyne Loewen as Pregnant Nancy

Directed by Marcos Siega

Summary:
"Chaos Theory" combines dark cynical humor with a moving relationship drama that never goes where you might expect, but is as much a coup for director Marcos Siega as it is for Ryan Reynolds.

Story:
Frank Allen (Ryan Reynolds) is a motional speaker who specializes in efficiency training but when his wife Susan (Emily Mortimer) tries to get him to relax by resetting his clock, she ends up making him late for an important engagement which leads to a series of incidences that threaten to destroy Frank's organized life.

Analysis:
There's something about Marcos Siega that makes you want him to do good, maybe because his first movie "Underclassman" was a work-for-hire that fell victim to the Weinstein's exodus from Miramax after being delayed for years, coming out weeks after his second movie "Pretty Persuasion," which had a better premise but suffered from its negligible budget. It's hard not to think of all those "could have beens" as you watch his third movie "Chaos Theory" but thankfully, Siega has used his previous experiences to find the right balance of style and storytelling to tell a quirky morality tale that shows lots of promise for future endeavors.

It certainly doesn't hurt that Siega's third attempt stars Ryan Reynolds, an extremely underrated actor who has turned his ability for dark cynical humor into a science since we first saw him in "Van Wilder." Frank Allen has a similar cynical attitude, but he wasn't always like that, as we find out when the film flashes back to a New Year's party decades earlier where Allen and his friend Buddy (Stuart Townsend) are competing for the attention of the lovely Susan (Emily Mortimer). The introverted Frank wins out and seven years later, they're married with a seven-year-old daughter, and he's leading a regimented life made up of lists and slogans. In an attempt to loosen her husband up, Susan resets the clocks, making him late for an important seminar he's leading and a downwards spiral as Frank allows himself to be seduced by a gorgeous woman at the conference--Sarah Chalke from "Scrubs" at her sexiest as she strips down to bra and panties. While driving home, he stops to help a stranded pregnant woman, leading to a misunderstanding that ends his marriage. When Frank takes a paternity test to try to clear his name and get Susan back, he finds out that he's been sterile, which means their daughter is not his. Frank starts drinking and losing his mind, turning his efficiency system into a quirk where he writes random things down on file cards and picks one to do.

Much of the film, Frank is either moping or raging about how his life has gone to sh*t from one careless attempt at making his life easier, but much of the film's fun comes from watching him do crazy things like starting bar fights in his attempt to "live for the moment." It's ultimately a strange and quirky premise for a film but one that offers many satisfying moments within Reynolds' performance that clearly proves his potential to play Nicholson-level anti-hero roles in a way that you can love him and hate what he does at the same time. While some of the credit has to go to the make-up and hair department, the fact that we readily believe Reynolds as the older and younger more naïve versions of Frank Allen is a testament to his skills as an actor. Emily Mortimer is in similar mode to her work in "Lars and the Real Girl" and Stuart Townsend is also decent as the best friend trying to make right an indiscretion that ruined his friend's marriage.

The film is quite short to the point where it ends abruptly, almost unexpectedly, but considering the dark and snarky nature of much of the film's humor, the ending is surprisingly warm and touching pulling the viewer back from the deep end, and it's a satisfying pay-off for those who've allowed themselves to get pulled into the lives of these characters.

The Bottom Line:
Like some of the best indie comedies, "Chaos Theory" takes an original premise and uses it to showcase a decent script and solid performances, and even after it starts getting too dark and dramatic, it does a return to a place that wins you over by the end. So congratulations to Marcos Siega for finally getting one right!

Smart People (Opening Friday, April 11)

Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Cast:
Dennis Quaid as Lawrence Wetherhold
Sarah Jessica Parker as Janet Hartigan
Thomas Haden Church as Chuck Wetherhold
Ellen Page as Vanessa Wetherhold
Ashton Holmes as James Wetherhold
Christine Lahti as Nancy
Camille Mana as Missy Chin
David Denman as William
Don Wadsworth as Hadley
Robert Haley as Roth
Patrick Sebes as Curtis
Kevin James Doyle as Rodney
Paul Huber as Ben Onufrey

Directed by Noam Murro

(Note: Part of this review was originally posted on the CS Sundance Blog)

Story:
Carnegie-Mellon English professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is a cranky know-it-all hated by his students, faculty and family alike, who ends up in the care of a former student, Dr. Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), after a dumb accident leaves him injured. Having not been with a woman since his wife died years earlier, he decides to pursue Janet, much to the annoyance of his overly ambitious 17-year-old Young Republican daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page), who immediately dislikes the doctor. At the same time, Larry's good-for-nothing adopted brother Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) has decided to move in, making the Wetherhold's already dysfunctional family life even worse.

Analysis:
When you watch a lot of movies, there comes a point where you've seen so many that you know every possible combination and formula, making a perfectly funny, sweet and intelligent movie like this one seem far too familiar, even if the characters and situations are unique. The film's co-producer Michael London has had mainstream success with similar "mainstream indies" including Alexander Payne's "Sideways" and "The Family Stone," so it's not surprising to see some of the players from those movies showing up here.

A romantic dramedy about a widower trying to find new love while trying to keep his family together is somewhat of an overused premise, seen as recently as Peter Hedges' "Dan in Real Life," but screenwriter Mark Poirier has enough of his own voice to make this into a different movie, one that creates an intricate amalgam of dysfunctional family dynamics alongside the usual up and down romantic relationship at the film's core.

This is a very different character for Dennis Quaid who plays down his looks--shabbily dressed with an untrimmed beard and a noticeable paunch--with all sorts of ticks and quirky habits used to deal with the death of his wife. (Like Miles from "Sideways," he's also a failed author whose book has been rejected by every publisher.) It's very much the type of role we might have seen Jack Nicholson play 15 to 20 years ago, and Quaid can certainly do worse for a career trajectory than to follow Jack. Sarah Jessica Parker's character isn't as much of a stretch, although she's an enigmatic woman who has difficulty connecting to men. As much as we want to see the relationship between the two of them work out, he's such a pompous ass most of the time that some may be surprised that Janet gives him a second chance after their disastrous first date. Essentially, this is a man so caught up in his own life and opinions that he doesn't notice the things going on around him, even though it's hard not to sympathize with his inability to get over the loss of his wife. Even so, his son (played by Ashton Holmes) has already sickened of his father's behavior, leaving only Vanessa as her father's biggest cheerleader and fan, imitating his general disdain for people who aren't as smart as them.

Anyone who saw "Sideways" (also produced by London) and "Juno" won't be surprised that Thomas Haden Church and Ellen Page steal the movie whenever they're on screen, as both of them have a way of delivering every line in an inimitable style that makes them instantly funny. (In case you were wondering, Page is indeed as funny in this as she was in "Juno" although this is a very different character.) The scenes with Church and Page together are really the best part of the movie, as their awkward relationship breaks away from the norm when the teenager develops an inappropriate crush on the bad influence step-uncle who gets her stoned and drunk. Their secondary plot is a nice way to break things up rather than focusing merely on the relationship between Quaid and Parker. While Church is able to get laughs merely by his outlandish appearance, sporting a bushy moustache and crazy hair, and once we're used to that, we end up seeing way more of his ass than necessary, even if each time it still warrants laughs. Out of the entire cast, Ashton Holmes' character seems the least relevant and necessary to the story, only there to act as a target for Vanessa's acerbic wit.

For his directorial debut, Noam Murro wisely doesn't go overboard with flashy camerawork or editing, instead allowing the script and the performances by the great cast he's assembled come to the fore, something that's highly commendable. He also makes the mistake of too many first-time directors, falling so in love with the film's soundtrack that he goes overboard by jam-packing every other minute with acoustic-driven tunes. The fact that those songs are written and performed by Nuno Bettencourt, formerly of the Boston hair metal band Extreme, does help the movie break away from the normal indie alt-rock that's become standard.

While the first half of the movie is literally a laugh a minute with lots of great lines and gags, things start to get a bit too serious by the end—again, following the normal trajectory of this type of movie—as Larry starts to realize it's time to move on and make things work with Janet. It's fairly easy to know where things are going if you've seen enough indie films, because there's few other places for things to go.

The Bottom Line:
Despite my cynicism towards indie movies that follow a previously successful formula, "Smart People" has enough funny moments and original ideas within its character dynamics that it's genuinely enjoyable based on the strength of its script and cast alone. Anyone who's ever felt their life was permanently on hold should appreciate what Murro and his talented cast have done with such strong material.