So I got free passes to a screening of “Enigma,” starring Kate Winslet. We got to the theater late, and my friend didn’t really want to see that movie anyway, so we decided to watch Deuces Wild instead. I mean, it’s got Matt Dillon and Steven Dorff, and even Frankie Muniz. They’re not great, but it should at least be interesting, right? It’s a New York gang drama. At the very least, there should be some decent fight scenes. I’m not expecting The Godfather or anything, just some mindless entertainment.
After about 5 minutes, I didn’t think I’d make it through the movie. Now, I’ve never ever walked out of a movie before and I was sure that this would be the first. The filmmakers must have somehow manipulated the laws of physics to squeeze so many cliches onto each frame and into each line of dialogue. Every character was taken directly from a million other movies of the same genre. I swore I would never forgive the girl I was with for making us late and suggesting we see this movie.
But then… about 10 minutes into the movie, everything suddenly changed. The movie was still the same predictable rehashed garbage, but I started realizing that it was so ridiculously bad that it was funny. Every time Malcolm in the Middle appeared on camera he was completely out of place. There was a slow-motion shot of a character walking towards camera while a car exploded in the background. There was remarkably obvious product placement. I don’t mean a soda machine in the background. Once, almost randomly, half the theater screen was an ad for Coppertone sunblock.
There was a gang fight or three with overly dramatic (yet completely ineffective) music, and too-loud artificial-sounding punch sound effects. There was a flashback in which a character clearly stated the point of the flashback. In fact, he was facing the camera, practically narrating. Every other shot was a dissolve to the next shot, which dissolved to the following shot. There were 2 or 3 instances of completely random unneccesary stylistic editing, slowed frame rate, sped-up sound-effects and the like. The very opening scene contained a voice-over of our protagonist telling us about “That summer in '63, when the dodgers were something something… the summer I fell in love, and nothing would be the same…”
I’m sure the 7 or 8 other people in the theater hated us for it, but there was a good loud belly laugh every 4 or 5 minutes through the entire movie, without fail. I can’t think of a comedy released in the last several years that even comes close to being as funny as this. Now I’m so glad we ended up there, and I probably would have been happy to pay the ticket price to see it. In fact, I might just have to go back and see it again, as I’m sure there’s a ton of stuff I missed while I was rolling in the aisles.
Could anyone else that has seen this thing just check in to let me know whether they thought it was as unbelievably hilarious as I did?