I grew up in the city, had confidence in Duchovny and had high hopes for this movie. But it was an enormous disappointment.
Erykah Badu was the best thing in the movie. Her performance was funny, touching and very convincing. And although, I like most of Robin Williams' (Popass) scenes, there are too many things that make no sense about this movie for it to have any believability. The music was intrusive. I kept wanting to turn it down to be able to focus on the difficult dialog. The best parts were the quiet scenes where the main character of the film at age 13 talks up to a female prisoner in a prison in the heart of Manhattan.
On a personal level, the movie really offended me. Every adult is made out to look like an idiot or pervert in some way:
* Robin Williams gets a hard on after seeing a scary movie. He tells a 13 year old girl he has a big penis.
* An entire characters only purpose in the movie is to unknowingly be made to say obscene things in French. (A joke that unfunnily showed up at the end of the movie as well with Tommy's wife. "French boner.")
* Tommy's mother laughs at an absurd hard-on her son fakes
* Tommy's boss looks a girly flip books. His other female boss bears puts his face in her breasts
* During a bible class, the only other teacher who is focused on, reads a sexual story from the bible
* A woman Tommy delivers meat to is a sex pot
I just can't believe that Tommy and Popass know every single sex joke that is a play on foreign languages, but an adult French teacher wouldn't know what the English word, "penis" is. This is a Catholic school. Come on. What is the point in making Catholic School look like it's run by a bunch of idiots?
Another running joke is to have dogs pee on bicycles. And yet another is a play on Robin William's character's name, Papass. We get treated to "momass" and then "Tomass".
I'm not prude and I don't mind an adult movie. But there is too much sexual innuendo in this movie. It would probably have been fine if it had been limited to the young teens. But it's with every adult as well. Every single scene has a sort of "dirtiness" to it. If this thing is going to be such a strong thing throughout the entire movie, I think it would have worked better as a pure comedy. Not a dramatic, coming-of-age story.
How can David Duchovny have made a movie that has so many glaring mistakes and is so unrealistic? I grew up in a small New York City apartment. We had two bathrooms, but only one had a shower in it. There is no way my parents would have had a clear shower curtain. But then, of course Duchovny wouldn't be able to show at least two very clear scenes through the shower curtain of Tea Leoni peeing while her son takes a shower if the curtain hadn't been clear.
This movie was dreadful. Horrible. Awful. I think Duchovny should go write sex novels. He seems to be obsessed with that type of humor.
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