There are certain entertainers that I absolutely adore. They become almost like a part of the family. Near the top of that list of "relatives" for me would be Drew Barrymore. She always seems to touch a place in my heart, all the way back to the days of ET, when she played sweet little Gertie. It seems like she just shines in whatever role she plays, even when the film she's playing in stinks to high heaven.
In my effort to collect all of Drew Barrymore films, I picked up the VHS of Home Fries (1998) a while back. Unlike most of her films which I could watch again and again, this one has sat on my shelf, untouched, since the first time I watched it. Until yesterday, that is. I was looking for the Stinkiest movie in my collection. This one just jumped out at me. Oh, yea, Baby....it's that bad.
The cast list would lead you to believe that this could be an excellent film. There are some talented folks there...Drew Barrymore, Luke Wilson, Catherine O'Hara, Shelley Duvall, Jake Busey. So where did it go so wrong?
Let's just start at the beginning. A man pulls up to the drive-up window of the Burger Matic, (a fast food joint) and hands a rose to the extremely pregnant young lady that is working there. He offers to drive her home and she turns him down by so eloquently replying "You just wanna poke dents in my babys' head". Real classy stuff, there.
Moments later this same man is driving down a dirt road. A hi-tech helicopter swoops down and frightens the man. He manages to land his car in a ditch and jumps out, running as those aliens were chasing him. He drops his prescription bottle in the meantime....medicine for his "heart condition". The helicopter follows him with its' searchlights. He stumbles out onto an open field and sits down on a bench. The helicopter hovers right in front of him and lets out a round of fire at the ground. The next morning the man is found dead...from a heart attack.
Wow!! Sounds like we're going to see some suspense and a little adventure! Think again. What we really see is a ridiculous story filled with more potholes than Interstate 40 heading into Little Rock. The operators of the helicopter are the mans' Stepsons. Surely the man knew this....I mean, hey, this was in a rural community of approximately 50 and 8/9ths, where everybody knew everybody else. Give me a break here.
The basic premise of Home Fries is supposed to be about a woman who is looking for revenge. Her husband has been running around on her and she wants both him and his play-toy (whose identity isn't known to her, of course) taken out. She uses her 2 sons to carry out the dirty deed on the hubby and discover the name of the "other woman".
I guess I probably don't need to add that there is a "Good" Son and a "Bad" Son. And of course, the good Son makes the startling revelation of this other woman and proceeds to fall in love with her and attempt to protect her from the "bad" son and their Mother. That would make it just a little too cliche'd, wouldn't it?
The characters begin with Sally (Drew Barrymore), the young pregnant woman. Then there are the sons/Stepsons. The "good" one is Dorian (Luke Wilson) and the "bad" one is Angus (Jake Busey). The mother-from-hell is played by Catherine O'Hara. I wish I could say that any one of these folks gave a great performance, but had a terrible script to work with. Unfortunately, that's just not the case. Yes, the script was awful, but so were they.
When I watch a romantic comedy I expect there to be some chemistry, some spark. I want to feel what the characters are experiencing and maybe need to grab for a Kleenex or two. There is one very short moment that I felt this way when I watched Home Fries....when Sally and Dorian share their first kiss. That was a sweet scene, but not nearly enough to carry the film.
Before I close this off, I just have to add the fact that I've lived in the South the better part of my life. I can spot a fake accent a mile away. The Southern accents here were about the worst I've heard since Bill Paxtons' rendition of one in Next of Kin. And I like the guy, but he really stunk worse than a mad skunk in that.
If you feel some driving desire to check out Home Fries, hey, that's cool. But I predict that you'll be wishing you'd grabbed a cold one, a lawn chair and sat outside watching the grass grow. That would be much more entertaining.
Running time for this pickle is 91 minutes....90 too long. It's rated PG-13, but there's nothing there that the kiddies can't see.
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This is my entry into the Stinky Movie Write/Off, being hosted by Scotte1218. You can read all the entries right here.
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