Pride combines the two main themes in the current plethora of sports movies -- the inspirational victory and a Bad News Bears team that goes from ragtag to riches. Throw in historical black empowerment, too, which does occasionally crop up in films like Glory Road. Thus, the problem facing a film like Pride is that it feels like something we saw a month ago. Yes, Terrence Howard delivers another solid lead performance and competition swimming is a new arena for such films. Nonetheless, Pride is just plain trite.
The presence of Howard and popular comedian-actor Bernie Mac, who also is quite good, certainly will help the theatrical release by Lionsgate. Boxoffice probably will be in the midrange with perhaps greater potential on DVD.
The central figure is Jim Ellis, who has coached swim teams composed mostly of blacks from the Philadelphia Department of Recreation for more than 35 years. The screenplay, attributed to a pair of writing teams, Kevin Michael Smith & Michael Gozzard and J. Mills Goodloe & Norman Vance Jr., is a semi-fictional take on the early years when the Marcus Foster Recreational Center suffered from community neglect and was nearly shut down.
Jim (Howard) is no white knight when he initially walks into the graffiti-marred, unkempt facility in 1973. He's just guy who needs a job. In a scene heavy with portent of future showdowns, Jim is denied employment at a white school by a racist coach (Tom Arnold). But he does land a temporary job that amounts to little more than helping to shut down the Marcus Foster Rec Center.
When the city removes the basketball rims from the courts outside, local players drift into the center to discover a remarkably pristine swimming pool. Pretty soon, Jim, who swam competitively in college, is teaching them the butterfly and back strokes. Predictably, the guys are soon eager for competition. And, predictably, their first meet takes place against the preppy Main Line school team coached by Arnold. They get humiliated. One swimmer hits his head against the end of the pool. Another loses his trunks.
So the team buckles down to work, learns to swim much better and gets two more rematches with their nemesis team. In one, the white team refuses to compete in the Rec Center's pool. In the other, a state championship is on the line. The outcome also is predictable.
Howard glides through the story with professional elan, his natural charisma doing most of the work. Bernie Mac for once is playing a character who his not Bernie Mac, and he is terrific as the rec center custodian. Kimberly Elise can't do much with the routine role of a swimmer's sister and a city councilman who has the juice to help the center survive if she so chooses.
The movie supplies both a white and black villain. Along side Arnold's smirking coach is Gary Sturgis' ghetto hood, a character without much dimension or any rationale for harassing a swimming team.
The young actors playing the swimmers aren't given much to work with other than a single defining characteristic -- a stutter for one and glasses indicating braininess for another. But they are attractive actors and solid athletes.
Under the direction of neophyte Sunu Gonera, who might be the first Hollywood director to hail from Zimbabwe, the film is technically proficient. Matthew F. Leonetti's camerawork is polished and fluid, while designer Steve Saklad handles period details well. A soundtrack of Philly Soul -- familiar music from the songwriting team of Gamble and Huff -- makes for great listening.
PRIDE
Lionsgate
Cinerenta/Infinity Media
Credits:
Director: Sunu Gonera
Screenwriters: Kevin Michael Smith, Michael Gozzard, J. Mills Goodloe, Norman Vance Jr.
Story: Kevin Michael Smith, Michael Gozzard
Producers: Brett Forbes, Patrick Rizzotti, Michael Ohoven, Adam Rosenfelt, Paul Hall
Executive producers: Terrence Howard, Victoria Fredrick, Sam Nazarian, Eberhard Kayser, Malcolm Petal, Kimberly C. Anderson, Mike Paseornek, John Sacchi
Cinematographer: Matthew F. Leonetti
Production designer: Steve Saklad
Music: Aaron Zigman
Costume designer: Paul Simmons
Editor: Billy Fox
Cast:
Jim Ellis: Terrence Howard
Elston: Bernie Mac
Sue Davis: Kimberly Elise
Bink: Tom Arnold
Puddin Head: Brandon Fobbs
Walt: Alphonso McAuley
Willie: Regine Nehy
Hakim: Nate Parker
Andre: Kevin Phillips
Running time -- 108 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
The presence of Howard and popular comedian-actor Bernie Mac, who also is quite good, certainly will help the theatrical release by Lionsgate. Boxoffice probably will be in the midrange with perhaps greater potential on DVD.
The central figure is Jim Ellis, who has coached swim teams composed mostly of blacks from the Philadelphia Department of Recreation for more than 35 years. The screenplay, attributed to a pair of writing teams, Kevin Michael Smith & Michael Gozzard and J. Mills Goodloe & Norman Vance Jr., is a semi-fictional take on the early years when the Marcus Foster Recreational Center suffered from community neglect and was nearly shut down.
Jim (Howard) is no white knight when he initially walks into the graffiti-marred, unkempt facility in 1973. He's just guy who needs a job. In a scene heavy with portent of future showdowns, Jim is denied employment at a white school by a racist coach (Tom Arnold). But he does land a temporary job that amounts to little more than helping to shut down the Marcus Foster Rec Center.
When the city removes the basketball rims from the courts outside, local players drift into the center to discover a remarkably pristine swimming pool. Pretty soon, Jim, who swam competitively in college, is teaching them the butterfly and back strokes. Predictably, the guys are soon eager for competition. And, predictably, their first meet takes place against the preppy Main Line school team coached by Arnold. They get humiliated. One swimmer hits his head against the end of the pool. Another loses his trunks.
So the team buckles down to work, learns to swim much better and gets two more rematches with their nemesis team. In one, the white team refuses to compete in the Rec Center's pool. In the other, a state championship is on the line. The outcome also is predictable.
Howard glides through the story with professional elan, his natural charisma doing most of the work. Bernie Mac for once is playing a character who his not Bernie Mac, and he is terrific as the rec center custodian. Kimberly Elise can't do much with the routine role of a swimmer's sister and a city councilman who has the juice to help the center survive if she so chooses.
The movie supplies both a white and black villain. Along side Arnold's smirking coach is Gary Sturgis' ghetto hood, a character without much dimension or any rationale for harassing a swimming team.
The young actors playing the swimmers aren't given much to work with other than a single defining characteristic -- a stutter for one and glasses indicating braininess for another. But they are attractive actors and solid athletes.
Under the direction of neophyte Sunu Gonera, who might be the first Hollywood director to hail from Zimbabwe, the film is technically proficient. Matthew F. Leonetti's camerawork is polished and fluid, while designer Steve Saklad handles period details well. A soundtrack of Philly Soul -- familiar music from the songwriting team of Gamble and Huff -- makes for great listening.
PRIDE
Lionsgate
Cinerenta/Infinity Media
Credits:
Director: Sunu Gonera
Screenwriters: Kevin Michael Smith, Michael Gozzard, J. Mills Goodloe, Norman Vance Jr.
Story: Kevin Michael Smith, Michael Gozzard
Producers: Brett Forbes, Patrick Rizzotti, Michael Ohoven, Adam Rosenfelt, Paul Hall
Executive producers: Terrence Howard, Victoria Fredrick, Sam Nazarian, Eberhard Kayser, Malcolm Petal, Kimberly C. Anderson, Mike Paseornek, John Sacchi
Cinematographer: Matthew F. Leonetti
Production designer: Steve Saklad
Music: Aaron Zigman
Costume designer: Paul Simmons
Editor: Billy Fox
Cast:
Jim Ellis: Terrence Howard
Elston: Bernie Mac
Sue Davis: Kimberly Elise
Bink: Tom Arnold
Puddin Head: Brandon Fobbs
Walt: Alphonso McAuley
Willie: Regine Nehy
Hakim: Nate Parker
Andre: Kevin Phillips
Running time -- 108 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 3/19/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Drake Bell, Kevin Covais, Andrew Caldwell and Haley Bennett are set to star in Element Films and State Street Pictures' youth comedy College, directed by Deb Hagan. Lionsgate will distribute through its long-term distribution deal with Element.
Also in the film are Gary Owens and Ryan Pinkston (Punk'd).
From a screenplay by Dan Callahan and Adam Ellison, College centers on three high school seniors who have the wildest weekend of their lives when they visit a nearby college campus as prospective freshmen. Element is producing in association with State Street Pictures and New Orleans-based LIFT Films.
Element will fully finance the project.
Producers are Element president and co-founder Adam Rosenfelt, vp production and development Julie Dangel and State Street's Robert Teitel. Rene Rigal of State Street will co-produce. Element co-founder Sam Nazarian and Element COO Marc Schaberg will executive produce with Malcolm Petal and Kim Anderson of State Street Pictures.
Bell stars in Nickelodeon's Drake and Josh. Repped by WMA, he most recently starred in Paramount's Yours, Mine and Ours.
Covais was an American Idol contestant in Season 5.
Also in the film are Gary Owens and Ryan Pinkston (Punk'd).
From a screenplay by Dan Callahan and Adam Ellison, College centers on three high school seniors who have the wildest weekend of their lives when they visit a nearby college campus as prospective freshmen. Element is producing in association with State Street Pictures and New Orleans-based LIFT Films.
Element will fully finance the project.
Producers are Element president and co-founder Adam Rosenfelt, vp production and development Julie Dangel and State Street's Robert Teitel. Rene Rigal of State Street will co-produce. Element co-founder Sam Nazarian and Element COO Marc Schaberg will executive produce with Malcolm Petal and Kim Anderson of State Street Pictures.
Bell stars in Nickelodeon's Drake and Josh. Repped by WMA, he most recently starred in Paramount's Yours, Mine and Ours.
Covais was an American Idol contestant in Season 5.
Commercial director Deb Hagan will make her feature directorial debut with the comedy College, to be produced by Los Angeles-based Element Films and State Street Pictures. Lionsgate will distribute through its output deal with Element.
Based on a screenplay by Dan Callahan and Adam Ellison, College revolves around three high school seniors on a wild weekend adventure visiting a nearby college as prospective freshmen. Element Films will finance and produce the project, with Sam Nazarian and Marc Schaberg serving as executive producers. The company is producing in association with State Street Pictures and Lift.
Bob Teitel and George Tilman of State Street, who brought the project to Element, will serve as producers. Malcolm Petal and Morris Bart of Lift also will produce. Rene Rigal of State Street and Julie Dangel of Element will serve as co-producers.
Hagan previously directed numerous national commercials and a short film, Pee Shy, which played on the film festival circuit. She is represented by the Gersh Agency for features and television and managed by Alison Rosenzweig at Rosenzweig Films.
Based on a screenplay by Dan Callahan and Adam Ellison, College revolves around three high school seniors on a wild weekend adventure visiting a nearby college as prospective freshmen. Element Films will finance and produce the project, with Sam Nazarian and Marc Schaberg serving as executive producers. The company is producing in association with State Street Pictures and Lift.
Bob Teitel and George Tilman of State Street, who brought the project to Element, will serve as producers. Malcolm Petal and Morris Bart of Lift also will produce. Rene Rigal of State Street and Julie Dangel of Element will serve as co-producers.
Hagan previously directed numerous national commercials and a short film, Pee Shy, which played on the film festival circuit. She is represented by the Gersh Agency for features and television and managed by Alison Rosenzweig at Rosenzweig Films.
- 11/30/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
CANNES -- William Friedkin cranks up the aesthetic meds in Bug, a garden-variety variant of the psycho-solider genre which should snare first-weekend horror fans as surely as a No-Pest strip. Lionsgate, with another one-word title, will be challenged to lure mainstream viewers with a title mug like Bug.
A genre film torched with psychological accelerants, "Bug" is narratively compacted into a single motel room, a cinematic space akin to the cramp of a Santa Monica Boulevard no-Equity theater. As such, there are no chases through Brooklyn under the train or spinning heads, but Friedkin swirls the formulaic story to its most intense inner dimension. With his vigorous camera compositions and a talented cast, he manages to straddle a wickedly fine line between taught portrayal of paranoia and parody of paranoia.
The slug on "Bug": Mysterious Western stranger saddles up with vulnerable pretty lady in out-of-way motel, and together they must fend off the black hats. In this cracked case, Agnes (Ashley Judd) cocktails at a shitkickers' bar, pines away in a seedy motel room and gets crank phone calls, she thinks, from her wacko ex-boyfriend (Harry Connick Jr.) , who has been just sprung from the pen.
In steps the Mysterious Stranger, a stray named Peter (Michael Shannon) picked up by Agnes' co-worker roustabout (Lynn Collins). Peter Is a bit stiff with the womenfolk, but in a physical manner that sexually repressed Agnes readily appreciates. After one night of less-than-tender bliss, Agnes wants him to stay. A protective male, Peter spots a tiny bug in her bed and immediately goes into full-stage bug alert. He convinces her that they have a "bug problem," one far beyond the common insect nuisance. These bugs are part of a diabolical Army experiment gone awry, he tells her: His blood has been infected with larvae in a V.A. hospital run by Nazi imports. Soon, Peter has the place encrusted in tin foil. Weirder, he begins to mutilate himself, trying to purge his poisons. After that, "Bug" gets grosser and grosser.
Admittedly, when synopsized, "Bug" sounds like high camp, but it is smartly and convincingly fleshed out, at least enough to fit inside and burst the seams of generic dimension. Screenwriter Tracy Letts has spun a psychologically taut thriller based around the co-dependent needs and neuroses/psychoses of the lead characters.
With her low self-esteem and loneliness, Agnes is rife for a savior, and Peter's messianic mania injects her with a huge boost of self worth. Judd's ripe performance, coming out of her cocoon into a blaze of rhapsodic psychosis, is this entertainment's most stirring element. As Agnes, she quite convincingly descends into megalomaniac delusion, swelling into, err, an Agnes of Bug state of disgrace.
In his role as the wounded vet, Shannon recalls a young Tim Robbins in his wacko roles, as he whirls and catapults into a deadly state of delirium. As the lout ex-boyfriend, Connick is an apt pretty-boy knucklehead, while Collins brings out the intelligence of her honky-tonk lesbian character.
Under Friedkin's savvy directorial hand, technical contributions are well-realized, though the opening-scene bursts of helicopter blades too sharply clue us to the disabled-vet scenario to follow. Throughout, "Bug" is braced by cinematographer Michael Grady's charged camera movements and visceral compositions. It's also smartly buzzed by the music: Composer Brian Tyler's appropriately weird score and musical supervisor Jay Faires' smartly odd selections help orchestrate our emotions.
BUG
Lionsgate
Credits: Director: William Friedkin; Screenwriter: Tracy Letts; Based on the play by: Tracy Letts; Producers: Holly Wiersma, Kimberly C. Anderson, Malcolm Petal, Gary Huckabay, Michale Burns, Andreas Schardt; Executive producers: Malcolm Petal, Kimberly C. Anderson, Michael Ohoven, Jim Seibel; Co-producer: Bonnie Timmerman; Director of photographer: Michael Grady; Production designer: Franco Carbone; Editor: Darrin Navarro; Music: Brian Tyler; Musical supervisor: Jay Faires; Costume designer: Peggy Shnitzer.
Cast: Agnes: Ashley Judd; Peter: Michael Shannon; Jerry: Harry Connick Jr.; R.C.: Lynn Collins.
No MPAA rating R, running time 101 minutes.
A genre film torched with psychological accelerants, "Bug" is narratively compacted into a single motel room, a cinematic space akin to the cramp of a Santa Monica Boulevard no-Equity theater. As such, there are no chases through Brooklyn under the train or spinning heads, but Friedkin swirls the formulaic story to its most intense inner dimension. With his vigorous camera compositions and a talented cast, he manages to straddle a wickedly fine line between taught portrayal of paranoia and parody of paranoia.
The slug on "Bug": Mysterious Western stranger saddles up with vulnerable pretty lady in out-of-way motel, and together they must fend off the black hats. In this cracked case, Agnes (Ashley Judd) cocktails at a shitkickers' bar, pines away in a seedy motel room and gets crank phone calls, she thinks, from her wacko ex-boyfriend (Harry Connick Jr.) , who has been just sprung from the pen.
In steps the Mysterious Stranger, a stray named Peter (Michael Shannon) picked up by Agnes' co-worker roustabout (Lynn Collins). Peter Is a bit stiff with the womenfolk, but in a physical manner that sexually repressed Agnes readily appreciates. After one night of less-than-tender bliss, Agnes wants him to stay. A protective male, Peter spots a tiny bug in her bed and immediately goes into full-stage bug alert. He convinces her that they have a "bug problem," one far beyond the common insect nuisance. These bugs are part of a diabolical Army experiment gone awry, he tells her: His blood has been infected with larvae in a V.A. hospital run by Nazi imports. Soon, Peter has the place encrusted in tin foil. Weirder, he begins to mutilate himself, trying to purge his poisons. After that, "Bug" gets grosser and grosser.
Admittedly, when synopsized, "Bug" sounds like high camp, but it is smartly and convincingly fleshed out, at least enough to fit inside and burst the seams of generic dimension. Screenwriter Tracy Letts has spun a psychologically taut thriller based around the co-dependent needs and neuroses/psychoses of the lead characters.
With her low self-esteem and loneliness, Agnes is rife for a savior, and Peter's messianic mania injects her with a huge boost of self worth. Judd's ripe performance, coming out of her cocoon into a blaze of rhapsodic psychosis, is this entertainment's most stirring element. As Agnes, she quite convincingly descends into megalomaniac delusion, swelling into, err, an Agnes of Bug state of disgrace.
In his role as the wounded vet, Shannon recalls a young Tim Robbins in his wacko roles, as he whirls and catapults into a deadly state of delirium. As the lout ex-boyfriend, Connick is an apt pretty-boy knucklehead, while Collins brings out the intelligence of her honky-tonk lesbian character.
Under Friedkin's savvy directorial hand, technical contributions are well-realized, though the opening-scene bursts of helicopter blades too sharply clue us to the disabled-vet scenario to follow. Throughout, "Bug" is braced by cinematographer Michael Grady's charged camera movements and visceral compositions. It's also smartly buzzed by the music: Composer Brian Tyler's appropriately weird score and musical supervisor Jay Faires' smartly odd selections help orchestrate our emotions.
BUG
Lionsgate
Credits: Director: William Friedkin; Screenwriter: Tracy Letts; Based on the play by: Tracy Letts; Producers: Holly Wiersma, Kimberly C. Anderson, Malcolm Petal, Gary Huckabay, Michale Burns, Andreas Schardt; Executive producers: Malcolm Petal, Kimberly C. Anderson, Michael Ohoven, Jim Seibel; Co-producer: Bonnie Timmerman; Director of photographer: Michael Grady; Production designer: Franco Carbone; Editor: Darrin Navarro; Music: Brian Tyler; Musical supervisor: Jay Faires; Costume designer: Peggy Shnitzer.
Cast: Agnes: Ashley Judd; Peter: Michael Shannon; Jerry: Harry Connick Jr.; R.C.: Lynn Collins.
No MPAA rating R, running time 101 minutes.
- 5/20/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Consider the ellipsis in the title a warning. Between a couple of funny scenes and a bunch of unfunny gags, there's not much going on in "Waiting ... ". The comedy uses gross-out "humor" with little inventiveness to ply the familiar territory of twentysomething limbo and workplace hell. Despite a solid ensemble, this would-be "Kitchen Confidential" for the chain-steakhouse set, which boasts as many producers as cast members, doesn't serve up enough laughs to build a theatrical following but could find life on video as a takeout item.
There comes a moment for many thinking people when job security takes on life-threatening proportions: a clear-eyed look at unhappy co-workers and the inept boss signals something's gotta give. For 22-year-old Dean (Justin Long), that moment of truth occurs four years into his job waiting tables at ShenaniganZ. Obsessed with the apparent success of a former classmate -- helpfully brought to his attention by his mother -- Dean feels himself languishing at work and at the community college where he and best friend Monty (Ryan Reynolds) are on-again, off-again students.
Dangling benies and "power" before him, clueless manager Dan (David Koechner), who conducts dispiriting staff meetings by the Dumpster, offers the hard-working but directionless Dean a promotion to assistant manager. He is shocked when Dean asks for time to think it over. Where this is headed is as predictable as the dinner-hour rush.
The ShenaniganZ staff spend most nights partying together after long days slinging baked potatoes, and co-worker couplings are inevitable. Dean avoids commitment to earnest waitress Amy (Kaitlin Doubleday), while Dan and Monty eye the underage hostess (Vanessa Lengies). Monty, whose snarkiness is his identity (a cameo by Wendie Malick as his mother makes clear where he gets it), also spends time being humiliated by his feisty ex, waitress Serena (Anna Faris), and showing the ropes to wide-eyed new guy Mitch (John Francis Daley).
Mainly the ropes consist of learning how to play a behind-the-scenes time-waster that Serena rightly calls "an exercise in retarded homophobia." Sleazeball cook Raddimus (Luis Guzman), the mastermind of the Penis-Showing Game, provides demos for Mitch using raw chicken parts. Besides workplace dystopia, this exhibitionist stupidity is the script's central thread.
First-time writer-director Rob McKittrick demonstrates a feel for the systematic hysteria of restaurant dynamics, but his observations lack the absurdist edge of "Clerks" and the truly idiosyncratic detail that would make his characters three-dimensional. Within limited roles, the cast does what it can. Chi McBride, an actor capable of sublime understatement, plays the sage philosopher-king dishwasher, dispensing wisdom to a crew that includes two gangsta-wannabe pothead busboys (Andy Milonakis and Max Kasch), the angriest waitress in the world (Alanna Ubach) and a spineless virgin Robert Patrick Benedict). Is it any wonder that -- in the film's funniest gag -- their birthday serenade to a young boy makes him cry?
Filmed in New Orleans but with no sense of the place, "Waiting ..". unfolds mainly within appropriately generic restaurant interiors. Refreshingly, McKittrick doesn't lean on canned pop tracks as mortar, but neither does he craft enough of a story to hold together the shtick.
WAITING ...
Lions Gate Films
An Element Films and Eden Rock Media production in association with Wisenheimer Films
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Rob McKittrick
Producers: Adam Rosenfelt, Stavros Merjos, Jay Rifkin, Jeff Balis, Rob Green
Executive producers: Chris Moore, Jon Shestack, Sam Nazarian, Malcolm Petal, Marc Schaberg, Thomas Augsberger, Paul Fiore
Director of photography: Matthew Irving
Production designer: Devorah Herbert
Music: Adam Gorgoni
Co-producers: Chris Fenton, Dean Shull, Randy Winograd
Costume designer: Jillian Kreiner
Editors: David Finfer, Andy Blumenthal
Cast:
Monty: Ryan Reynolds
Serena: Anna Faris
Dean: Justin Long
Dan: David Koechner
Mitch: John Francis Daley
Tyla: Emmanuelle Chriqui
Amy: Kaitlin Doubleday
Nick: Andy Milonakis
T-Dog: Max Kasch
Naomi: Alanna Ubach
Calvin: Robert Patrick Benedict
Natasha: Vanessa Lengies
Bishop: Chi McBride
Raddimus: Luis Guzman
Monty's Mom: Wendie Malick
MPAA rating: R
Running time -- 93 minutes...
There comes a moment for many thinking people when job security takes on life-threatening proportions: a clear-eyed look at unhappy co-workers and the inept boss signals something's gotta give. For 22-year-old Dean (Justin Long), that moment of truth occurs four years into his job waiting tables at ShenaniganZ. Obsessed with the apparent success of a former classmate -- helpfully brought to his attention by his mother -- Dean feels himself languishing at work and at the community college where he and best friend Monty (Ryan Reynolds) are on-again, off-again students.
Dangling benies and "power" before him, clueless manager Dan (David Koechner), who conducts dispiriting staff meetings by the Dumpster, offers the hard-working but directionless Dean a promotion to assistant manager. He is shocked when Dean asks for time to think it over. Where this is headed is as predictable as the dinner-hour rush.
The ShenaniganZ staff spend most nights partying together after long days slinging baked potatoes, and co-worker couplings are inevitable. Dean avoids commitment to earnest waitress Amy (Kaitlin Doubleday), while Dan and Monty eye the underage hostess (Vanessa Lengies). Monty, whose snarkiness is his identity (a cameo by Wendie Malick as his mother makes clear where he gets it), also spends time being humiliated by his feisty ex, waitress Serena (Anna Faris), and showing the ropes to wide-eyed new guy Mitch (John Francis Daley).
Mainly the ropes consist of learning how to play a behind-the-scenes time-waster that Serena rightly calls "an exercise in retarded homophobia." Sleazeball cook Raddimus (Luis Guzman), the mastermind of the Penis-Showing Game, provides demos for Mitch using raw chicken parts. Besides workplace dystopia, this exhibitionist stupidity is the script's central thread.
First-time writer-director Rob McKittrick demonstrates a feel for the systematic hysteria of restaurant dynamics, but his observations lack the absurdist edge of "Clerks" and the truly idiosyncratic detail that would make his characters three-dimensional. Within limited roles, the cast does what it can. Chi McBride, an actor capable of sublime understatement, plays the sage philosopher-king dishwasher, dispensing wisdom to a crew that includes two gangsta-wannabe pothead busboys (Andy Milonakis and Max Kasch), the angriest waitress in the world (Alanna Ubach) and a spineless virgin Robert Patrick Benedict). Is it any wonder that -- in the film's funniest gag -- their birthday serenade to a young boy makes him cry?
Filmed in New Orleans but with no sense of the place, "Waiting ..". unfolds mainly within appropriately generic restaurant interiors. Refreshingly, McKittrick doesn't lean on canned pop tracks as mortar, but neither does he craft enough of a story to hold together the shtick.
WAITING ...
Lions Gate Films
An Element Films and Eden Rock Media production in association with Wisenheimer Films
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Rob McKittrick
Producers: Adam Rosenfelt, Stavros Merjos, Jay Rifkin, Jeff Balis, Rob Green
Executive producers: Chris Moore, Jon Shestack, Sam Nazarian, Malcolm Petal, Marc Schaberg, Thomas Augsberger, Paul Fiore
Director of photography: Matthew Irving
Production designer: Devorah Herbert
Music: Adam Gorgoni
Co-producers: Chris Fenton, Dean Shull, Randy Winograd
Costume designer: Jillian Kreiner
Editors: David Finfer, Andy Blumenthal
Cast:
Monty: Ryan Reynolds
Serena: Anna Faris
Dean: Justin Long
Dan: David Koechner
Mitch: John Francis Daley
Tyla: Emmanuelle Chriqui
Amy: Kaitlin Doubleday
Nick: Andy Milonakis
T-Dog: Max Kasch
Naomi: Alanna Ubach
Calvin: Robert Patrick Benedict
Natasha: Vanessa Lengies
Bishop: Chi McBride
Raddimus: Luis Guzman
Monty's Mom: Wendie Malick
MPAA rating: R
Running time -- 93 minutes...
- 10/13/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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