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2004 | 2000 | 1997

3 items from 2004

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Envy

9 July 2004 | The Hollywood Reporter | See recent The Hollywood Reporter news »

Opens

Friday, April 30

Taking in "Envy", the new Barry Levinson comedy starring the ubiquitous Ben Stiller and manic Jack Black (and featuring a scene-stealing Christopher Walken) is sort of like watching a TV talk show with a particularly strong guest lineup.

The banter is sufficiently witty and engaging for the duration of the broadcast, but any lingering effects are permanently banished with a casual flick of the remote control.

Hanging at times precariously by the thread of Steve Adams' seriously under-plotted script, the low-key picture gets by on the genial charisma of its cast, but it fails to rise to the occasion when it comes to building to a necessary comic pitch.

With Stiller on a roll after "Starsky & Hutch" and "Along Came Polly", and Black Red Hot on the heels of "School of Rock", the DreamWorks release (Columbia is handling international distribution) could initially draw fans, but ultimately DreamWorks will have to wait for "Shrek 2" because their coffers probably won't be turning green with "Envy".

Stiller's Tim Dingman and Black's Nick Vanderpark are best friends, next-door neighbors and co-workers whose relationship is seriously put to the test when one of them becomes ridiculously successful.

That would be Vanderpark. After driving his buddy crazy with his harebrained ideas for wild inventions without a shred of scientific data to back them up, Vanderpark manages to hit one out of the ballpark after his notion of making dog poop evaporate into thin air with a single spray of Vapoorizer becomes a multimillion-dollar industry.

Dubious from the start, Dingman passed on the opportunity to invest a couple thousand dollars in the pie-in-the-sky enterprise, and now he's literally living in the shadow of Vanderpark's triumph -- cast by a sprawling new mansion complete with vintage merry-go-round, bowling alley, archery range and imported Roman fountains.

Consumed with envy, much to the growing frustration of his wife (Rachel Weisz), Dingman strikes up a relationship with a nutty drifter (paging Mr. Walken), and that's when things really start spiraling out of control.

Levinson, as always, creates a comfortable working environment for his comic ensemble to strut its stuff, but this time out there just isn't very much to work with, thanks to a warmed-over plot that's all setup with insufficient payoff.

As a result, the laughs tend to come in fits and starts, built around individual set pieces rather than being generated organically out of the storytelling.

That may be why the Stiller-Black matchup doesn't generate the anticipated comic sparks, leaving Walken to effectively walk away with the picture. As the off-kilter and opportunistic J-Man, he manages to spin the most mundane of lines into comic gold with the mere accentuation of a single preposition.

Behind-the-scenes contributions are generally on the money, especially the wardrobe selected by Levinson's longtime costume designer Gloria Gresham, while Dan Navarro does his best Leon Redbone as the film's off-camera troubadour.

Envy

DreamWorks

DreamWorks Pictures and Columbia Pictures present in association with Castle Rock Entertainment a Baltimore/Spring Creek Pictures production

A Barry Levinson film

Credits:

Director: Barry Levinson

Producers: Barry Levinson, Paula Weinstein

Screenwriter: Steve Adams

Executive producer: Mary McLaglen

Director of photography: Tim Maurice-Jones

Production designer: Victor Kempster

Editors: Stu Linder, Blair Daily

Costume designer: Gloria Gresham

Composer: Mark Mothersbaugh

Cast:

Tim Dingman: Ben Stiller

Nick Vanderpark: Jack Black

Debbie Dingman: Rachel Weisz

Natalie Vanderpark: Amy Poehler

J-Man: Christopher Walken

Running time -- 99 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13 »

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An Everlasting Piece

8 July 2004 | The Hollywood Reporter | See recent The Hollywood Reporter news »

A small shelf in any conscientious collector's video library could easily contain many films over the years about "the troubles" in Northern Ireland. But few, if any, have ever viewed the strife between Protestants and Catholics as a comedy. Enter "An Everlasting Piece", a film from the always surprising Barry Levinson and written by Barry McEvoy, a Belfast-born actor who also stars.

Being an oddball movie with its own odd and quirky charm, "An Everlasting Piece" may well work as counterprogramming against the holiday blockbusters. But expectations can't be too high given the essential thinness of the material. It opens Christmas Day for a limited release.

Let's start with that punning title. While politicians continue, even now, to search for an everlasting peace in Northern Ireland, another piece plays a vital role in a land where tension and stress cause men's hair to fall out. Yes, baldness is rampant there.

So in the 1980s, fellow barbers Colm (McEvoy), a Catholic, and George (Brian O'Byrne), a Protestant and would-be poet, decide to corner the toupee market. Then they discover that a rival hairpiece company, Toupee or Not Toupee, is selling rugs like crazy.

Lost one night on a lonely country road, the two run into an Irish Republican Army patrol. Through a complicated series of circumstances, Colm winds up with an order of 30 wigs from the IRA. This creates a crisis of conscience because, as his disgusted girlfriend Bronagh (Anna Friel) points out, his partner would never approve of such a sale.

McEvoy bases his script on the memories of his dad, who was a barber and a hairpiece salesman in Northern Ireland before moving to New York. Consequently, the comic episodes have the ring of truth, though some tales are either too true to work as fiction or are exaggerated. And sometimes the urge to introduce whimsy into the sectarian conflict puts too great a strain on the story. But the film is too good-natured to make this a serious objection.

More problematic is Scottish actor-comic Billy Connolly. He plays the former monopoly holder of the toupee market in Northern Ireland who lost that monopoly when he went mad. He roams the streets and rants to no one in particular, a character mostly extraneous to the film's dramatic action.

"An Everlasting Piece" is a slight film, more a collection of amusing anecdotes played for all their worth than a dramatically coherent film. The acting contains great energy, which helps sustain the film during passages that feel padded.

Levinson's production team keeps the scale of the film appropriately small. Perhaps the comic, nonpolitical point of view would only have been possible for a film crew consisting largely of outsiders. But otherwise, the sense of time and place in these bleak Belfast locations is so dead-on that you might believe the movie to be the work of local filmmakers.

AN EVERLASTING PIECE

DreamWorks Pictures

DreamWorks and Columbia Pictures present

a Bayahibe Films production in association with

Baltimore/Spring Creek Pictures

Credits: Producers: Barry Levinson, Paul Weinstein, Mark Johnson, Louis DiGiamo, Jerome O'Connor; Director: Barry Levinson; Screenwriter: Barry McEvoy; Executive producer: Patrick McCormick; Director of photography: Seamus Deasy; Production designer: Nathan Crowley; Music: Hans Zimmer; Costume designer: Joan Bergin; Editor: Stu Linder. Cast: Colm: Barry McEvoy; George: Brian F. O'Byrne; Bronagh: Anna Friel; Scapler: Billy Connolly; IRA man: Colum Convey. MPAA rating: R. Running time -- 103 minutes. Color/stereo.

»

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Envy

30 April 2004 | The Hollywood Reporter | See recent The Hollywood Reporter news »

Opens

Friday, April 30

Taking in "Envy", the new Barry Levinson comedy starring the ubiquitous Ben Stiller and manic Jack Black (and featuring a scene-stealing Christopher Walken) is sort of like watching a TV talk show with a particularly strong guest lineup.

The banter is sufficiently witty and engaging for the duration of the broadcast, but any lingering effects are permanently banished with a casual flick of the remote control.

Hanging at times precariously by the thread of Steve Adams' seriously under-plotted script, the low-key picture gets by on the genial charisma of its cast, but it fails to rise to the occasion when it comes to building to a necessary comic pitch.

With Stiller on a roll after "Starsky & Hutch" and "Along Came Polly", and Black Red Hot on the heels of "School of Rock", the DreamWorks release (Columbia is handling international distribution) could initially draw fans, but ultimately DreamWorks will have to wait for "Shrek 2" because their coffers probably won't be turning green with "Envy".

Stiller's Tim Dingman and Black's Nick Vanderpark are best friends, next-door neighbors and co-workers whose relationship is seriously put to the test when one of them becomes ridiculously successful.

That would be Vanderpark. After driving his buddy crazy with his harebrained ideas for wild inventions without a shred of scientific data to back them up, Vanderpark manages to hit one out of the ballpark after his notion of making dog poop evaporate into thin air with a single spray of Vapoorizer becomes a multimillion-dollar industry.

Dubious from the start, Dingman passed on the opportunity to invest a couple thousand dollars in the pie-in-the-sky enterprise, and now he's literally living in the shadow of Vanderpark's triumph -- cast by a sprawling new mansion complete with vintage merry-go-round, bowling alley, archery range and imported Roman fountains.

Consumed with envy, much to the growing frustration of his wife (Rachel Weisz), Dingman strikes up a relationship with a nutty drifter (paging Mr. Walken), and that's when things really start spiraling out of control.

Levinson, as always, creates a comfortable working environment for his comic ensemble to strut its stuff, but this time out there just isn't very much to work with, thanks to a warmed-over plot that's all setup with insufficient payoff.

As a result, the laughs tend to come in fits and starts, built around individual set pieces rather than being generated organically out of the storytelling.

That may be why the Stiller-Black matchup doesn't generate the anticipated comic sparks, leaving Walken to effectively walk away with the picture. As the off-kilter and opportunistic J-Man, he manages to spin the most mundane of lines into comic gold with the mere accentuation of a single preposition.

Behind-the-scenes contributions are generally on the money, especially the wardrobe selected by Levinson's longtime costume designer Gloria Gresham, while Dan Navarro does his best Leon Redbone as the film's off-camera troubadour.

Envy

DreamWorks

DreamWorks Pictures and Columbia Pictures present in association with Castle Rock Entertainment a Baltimore/Spring Creek Pictures production

A Barry Levinson film

Credits:

Director: Barry Levinson

Producers: Barry Levinson, Paula Weinstein

Screenwriter: Steve Adams

Executive producer: Mary McLaglen

Director of photography: Tim Maurice-Jones

Production designer: Victor Kempster

Editors: Stu Linder, Blair Daily

Costume designer: Gloria Gresham

Composer: Mark Mothersbaugh

Cast:

Tim Dingman: Ben Stiller

Nick Vanderpark: Jack Black

Debbie Dingman: Rachel Weisz

Natalie Vanderpark: Amy Poehler

J-Man: Christopher Walken

Running time -- 99 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13 »

Permalink | Report a problem

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2004 | 2000 | 1997

3 items from 2004

---