Life an unexpected delight
FILM | Chuck Koplinski
I have to admit, I was dreading Life as We Know It. The last thing I wanted to sit through was another simple-minded romantic comedy where opposites meet cute and eventually learn to love each other after a series of misadventures. Turns out, the ad campaign for the film doesn’t do it justice as Life proves to be an entertaining, humorous and smart look at what it takes to be a parent.
Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Messer (Josh Duhamel) are thrown together when their mutual best friends die and they find out they were named godparents to their infant daughter Sophie. Finances and a bit of desperation force them to live together in order to raise the girl and it takes more than a while for them to get used to each other’s quirks. Along the way, they each realize that certain sacrifices must be made in the best interest of their young charge.
Red shoots at familiar targets
You know how frustrating it is when you go to the movies, psyched to see a film, only to realize they’ve already shown you all of the good parts in the trailer? That’s the kind of experience you get with Red, an adaptation of the DC Comics series about a group of former assassins forced out of retirement. Bad enough that the publicity department at Warner Brothers tipped the film’s hand, but its script is replete with so many familiar situations and character types it’s likely to instill a sense of déjà vu in the audience.
Former hit man Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is having a hard time filling the hours living in the suburbs. The only thing he looks forward to is flirting on the phone with Sarah Ross (Mary Louise-Parker), a woman he’s never met face-to-face, who’s in charge of getting his retirement checks to him. However, things take a turn when he’s paid a visit by a group of assassins who all wind up very dead. On the run, Moses heads to Kansas City to grab Sarah,
because now she’s a target, and then tracks down those in his old unit:
Joe (Morgan Freeman), Marvin (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen
Mirren).
Yeah, I know, this is a lame, predictable setup. However, writers Ian Deitchman and Kristin Robinson throw us a few curveballs and the film doesn’t go down the path you’d expect. Heigl and Duhamel have an unexpected sense of chemistry that helps the film glide over its rough patches and their genuine interactions with their young co-star, especially when Messer and Sophie go shopping for baby food, provide a sincere center that holds in what could otherwise be a by-thenumbers rom-com. While the supporting characters, with the exception of a charming pediatrician played by Josh Lucas, are broad stereotypes, Holly and Messer are given the proper heft so that we come to care for them. Better than you think, Life is an unexpected delight as it wisely opts to move its audience rather than insult it.
The film moves at a nice pace during its first half but then it flatlines horribly once the crew is back together. The veteran cast does its best to give the script some umph, but the tone as struck by director Robert Schwentke is all wrong here. Striving for irreverence, the film comes off as labored and predictable. Meanwhile its mixture of humor and violence is reminiscent of many of the worst Roger Moore Bond films in which the dark humor was oh so obvious and insulting. In the end, Red ends up shooting nothing but blanks at targets that are far too familiar.
Contact Chuck Koplinski at ckoplinski@usd116.org.
