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

A Life Less Ordinary (1997) Rated R
Stars: Cameron Diaz (Celine), Ewan McGregor (Robert), Dan Hedaya (Gabriel), Holly Hunter (O'Reiley) and Delroy Lindo (Jackson)

A Life Less Ordinary, may not be everyone's cup of tea but it is one of my favorite all time movies. I find the movie quirky and pretty darn funny. The actors are great and the story, while not totally new, is interesting. The movie is brought to us by the team that gave us Trainspotting and Shallow Grave. This movie is similar in some ways (styling, black humor and the use of Ewan McGregor) but also very different.


Robert is a janitor with big dreams, finds out he has been fired and replaced with a robot, then dumped by is girlfriend goes mad and storms the office of the company owner Mr. Naville. What he finds there is said robot and Mr. Naville's daughter Celine. Celine happens to be in the office explaining how she shot her boyfriend that morning. Her father is tired of her antics and has told her she now needs to work for a living. A series of events occur and we see Celine help Robert get hold of a gun and shoot her father in the leg. Robert in a panic takes, the not-unwilling, Celine and flees. Now the stage is set.

Meanwhile the angel Gabriel has the task of reprimanding his two favorite angles O'Reiley and Jackson. It seems that the couples they are setting up on Earth are not staying together. Gabriel's assignment, get Robert and Celine to fall in love or the two angels will be stuck on Earth, the last place they want to be. So Jackson and O'Riley go to Earth prepared to do anything to get these two, to fall in love.

The movie is a hilarious telling of a series of events that happen as Robert begins to get lessons in being a kidnapper from Celine and they begin to plot her ransom together. Just when it seems the angels wont have much work to do something happens to pull Robert and Celine apart again, and the angels have to get more and more ... inventive... in their methods.

I thought Diaz and McGregor did a fine job at their parts. Diaz was great at being the spoiled, snobby rich girl. Even going so far as to telling her kidnapper "If word got around that I had been liberated for half a million dollars, I could never show my face in polite society again. Diamonds have no value except that which is placed upon them.".

I always enjoy Ewan McGregor and this movie is no exception, he is hilarious as the bumbling kidnapper, taking instructions from his hostage.

Hunter was also very funny as the tabacco chewing angel bent on getting the mismatched couple together. Lindo was also pretty funny and the scenes with him and Hunter were some of the funniest in the movie. When these two go to Celine's father posing as bounty hunters their negotiation is really hilarious.
O'Reilly: Our fee for the recovery of your daughter is...one hundred thousand dollars.
Naville: That's a lot of money.
O'Reilly: Five thousand in advance. The rest is cash on delivery--no daughter, no dough.
Jackson: And naturally we'd operate a sliding scale, whereby if we only bring back part of your daughter, we only get part of the money.
O'Reilly: That's enough, Jackson.
Jackson: No, I mean if he's cut her ears off and we can't find them, we'll knock a couple thousand off the tariff. More for a limb, obviously.
O'Reilly: Jackson.
Jackson: Sorry."

The story itself almost feels like a series of small skits tied together, which oddly enough works with this movie. There are a few fantasy, dream-like sequences that are pretty funny, including a karoke scene with Diaz and McGregor doing "Beyond the Sea". Yes folks they do use their own voices, which in his case is ok, but her..well..at least it was funny.



If you liked Excess Baggage (1997) you should really like A Life Less Ordinary. It has the same type of plot but this movie is much better overall.



Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening