Film Threat Forecaster, 2/13/04: Love-Hate Potential

For couples looking for some cinematic novelty to spice up their Valentine's Day, Hollywood has provided an Adam Sandler film, a film in which Gene Hackman and Ray Romano compete in a mayoral election, and an NC-17 film by Bernardo Bertolucci. Well, one out of three ain't bad.

"50 First Dates" tries for date-movie status with its name, the presence of Drew Barrymore, its Hawaiian setting, and the fact that its protagonist is pitching exceptionally persistent woo: Barrymore has a short-term memory problem and thus, after sleeping, cannot remember any previous woo the protagonist has pitched, because she has a short-term memory problem. However, savvy moviegoers have seen the commercials for this film and know that (a) the protagonist is the aforementioned Sandler, a cinematic institution not much beloved by the fairer sex, (b) Rob Schneider plays a prominent role, which means this is not the artistically inclined "Punch-Drunk Love" Sandler but the punch-in-the-gut funnyman from such films as "Little Nicky" and (more hopefully) "Happy Gilmore," and (c) Sandler and co. have filled the movie with the fakest-sounding clubbings and punches and whatnot anyone has ever heard. From the commercials, it appears that "50 First Dates" features beatings with aluminum baseball bats, vicious uppercuts to the jaw, kickings in the patootie, and other such physical calamities, all of which sound exactly the same: like a padded two-by-four swung lustily into a punching bag. These people need to hire Johnathan Mostow's sound editors.

At this point in cinematic history, it should be pretty clear what this film is going to deliver: broad physical comedy, people with comical accents, a hot woman or two, and Schneider saying "You can dooo eeeit!" at a climactic moment. This package often makes for an undemanding yet entertaining evening of cinema, and Barrymore's oft-cloying attempts at sweetheartiness should barely peek out amid the broader hijinks. I'll go willingly if someone else I like wants to go, but not otherwise: the very definition of a film of Elevated risk.

Watching Gene Hackman as an ex-President run for mayor of a small town and then fall into a vicious mudslinging battle with a local boy probably will not spice up your romantic life this Valentine's, making you wonder how the producers of "Welcome to Mooseport" settled on this release date. Hackman can still puff out his chest and growl and snarl with the best of them, though, and he should carry his half of the comedic weight with panache. Romano, though, schlubbs it up with equal doses of whining and resignation on his popular show (whose name will not be spoken); this resume does not speak well to his ability to manage the transition from an aw-shucks townie to Lee Atwater. Nevertheless, Hackman always seems to bring his A game regardless of the other participants in his films, making this another Elevated risk, with caveats surrounding Romano's expected performance.

Despite the fact that Bertolucci's new film "The Dreamers" features attractive young people who get naked and have sex with each other a lot, it may not be exactly what couples are looking for on Valentine's, especially since the young people are composed of one American stranger and a French brother-sister pair who hang out in a claustrophobic apartment and watch movies all the time. The year is 1968, as it so often is, the place is Paris, and everyone's talking about revolution, film, and the human love act; these three take it upon themselves to combine these subjects them both ideologically and physically. From the previews, these look like prodigiously attractive young people, so if they're naked and having sex "The Dreamers" will achieve a basic but quite powerful appeal. But the implicit subject of how everything was so charged and alive and full of possibility and meaning in the sixties often leads to tiresome films, and there's nothing more tiresome than French people making vaguely ideological love. Bertolucci's latest therefore gets an Elevated, making three-for-three with tempting promise and potential flaws — which, in a way, makes these films an appropriate selection for this weekend's celebration of romantic love. Or, in my case, this weekend's celebration of half-price post-Feb. 14 candy.

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