Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

When I received my embossed invite to Daumco's One Star Is To High W/O (http://www.epinions.com/content_125030207108) I racked my brains, my chest and my loins to think of something I loathed so much that one star would be high.

So it was somewhat lucky that whilst at my local Blockbuster I walked past A View From The Top and a wave of horrid memories came flooding back, somewhat like morning sickness.

One of the rules for this W/O is that we are not allowed to let personal tastes get in the way- our subjects should be something that no one could find worthy of more than one star. Thus, with the exception of algae eating molluscs, I feel I can confidently submit this film for due consideration.

What is Gwyneth Paltrow's problem? Does she wake up occassionally, languidly stretch and say "You know, I'm really sick of doing quality movies like Shakespeare in Love and The Royal Tenebaums... I think I might do something terrible instead". How does she do it. How does one actress go from winning an Oscar to doing Shallow Hal. Or Duets.

Christina Applegate, she who acts with her t*ts, is equally excruciating in this movie as Gwennie's trailer trash compatriot. Mike Myers has a single joke in the entire movie and in case we missed it the first fourteen times he proceeds to repeat it another thirty six times. How considerate, in case one suffers a brain tumour during the film. Mark Ruffalo, as the love interest, has acting skills a cardboard box could be proud of. Candice Bergen essentially is reprising her Murphy Brown role in a stewardess uniform, somewhat like she reprised it in a two piece for Sweet Home Alabama. In my defense, I didn't see Alabama by choice- it was a long haul flight alright?

It is standard to give some idea of the plot in this movie by this point of a review but really, it's hardly worth the exertions it would take to type it. Gwennie is trailer trash who reads Bergen's book about glam cabin crew life and decides to become an international first class flight attendant. Of course she falls in love which stuffs up her career aspirations for a while which leads to the standard Career or Man dilemma so beloved by slightly less-than-pol-co romantic comedies. Inexplicably, she becomes a pilot and this solves the problem.

I feel no shame in revealing the ending, as no doubt you will have turned off this tripe and gone and done something rewarding like picking your toenails by the time the end credits roll to a violently inappropriate song and dance number. For some reason, this pilot thing bothered me. It was such a monumental leap of logic? When one is hired as a flight attendant can one be promoted within weeks to pilot? Since the problem was she was never in town for her boyfriend... how does being a pilot solve this? Maybe I'm naive, but I'd always assumed that pilots were travelling just as much as flight attendants. Or do pilots just take off and then parachute out of the plane, leaving them time to do much canoodling with their beau? I wish I could answer them, and maybe the movie did answer these vital questions, but by this point I was so blind with rage.

I honestly can't see what Ms Paltrow got out of this film. Applegate got to show off her boobies frequently (she's quite fond of this- proof in point the other close runner for my entry to this W/O The Sweetest Thing). Myers got to go high camp without going 60s. Even Bergen got some one liners. Paltrow, and Paltrow's character, just plain sucked. There is no nice way to put it.

It could be argued that A Puke From The Top is purely 'camp' and I don't get it. I'm a gay man. I 'get' camp. And let's not forget that 'camp' is just one letter away from 'crap'. Camp is possibly one of the hardest styles of comedy to translate on the film as it so easily crashes and burns in a fizzy, smoking heap.

This was one of Brazilian Bruce Barreto's first English language films. If there was ever an argument for stricter border controls, this was it.

Recommended: No