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One Night at McCool's
A winning cast who seem to be enjoying themselves makes the 2001 comedy One Night at McCool's worth a look despite a convoluted screenplay and some hard to swallow plot contrivances.
McCool's is the name of a seedy bar where a sexy hustler named Jewell (Liv Tyler) forever changes the lives of three men who all meet her at the bar on the same night. Matt Dillon plays Randy, the romantically challenged bartender who lives in his mother's run down house; Carl (Paul Reiser) is Randy's cousin, a married lawyer with kids who witnesses Randy saving Jewell from her alleged abusive boyfriend, Utah (Andrew Dice Clay, billed here under his real name Andrew Silverstein). John Goodman plays Detective Dehling, the police officer who is assigned to the case when Randy agrees to take the rap for Utah's murder, who also finds himself infatuated with Jewell.
There's a whole lot in Stan Seidel's screenplay that the viewer is asked to swallow here. The story initially sets up this Jewell character as dumb as a box of rocks and therefore somewhat sympathetic, which makes her instantaneous manipulation of the Randy character a little hard to swallow, but if that's possible, manipulating a lawyer and a police detective couldn't be too much of a stretch.
Director Harold Zwart, who also directed Agent Cody Banks does show a semblance of style in presenting this twisted black comedy. The initial set up of the story with Randy going to see a hitman (Michael Douglas), Carl seeing a shrink (Reba McIntire), and Dehling seeing a priest (Richard Jenkins) to talk about their addiction to this toxic woman is well executed and I also liked each time the three guys see Jewell for the first time, we get a slo-mo closeup of Jewell and the same music playing behind her, but somewhere around the halfway point, he loses control of what he's doing and interest begins to wane before the spectacular finale, a bloody gun battle with the Village People's "YMCA" blasting on the audio.
Zwart has assembled a terrific cast to pull off this improbable tale who appear completely committed to the nuttiness. Dillon is a charmer as Randy and Reiser is a lot of fun as the arrogant Carol and John Goodman, as he always does, steals every scene he's in. Liv Tyler is properly pouty as Jewell and Michael Douglas makes the most of a thankless role, but this movie never completely comes together and staying with it requires a lot of work from the viewer.
A winning cast who seem to be enjoying themselves makes the 2001 comedy One Night at McCool's worth a look despite a convoluted screenplay and some hard to swallow plot contrivances.
McCool's is the name of a seedy bar where a sexy hustler named Jewell (Liv Tyler) forever changes the lives of three men who all meet her at the bar on the same night. Matt Dillon plays Randy, the romantically challenged bartender who lives in his mother's run down house; Carl (Paul Reiser) is Randy's cousin, a married lawyer with kids who witnesses Randy saving Jewell from her alleged abusive boyfriend, Utah (Andrew Dice Clay, billed here under his real name Andrew Silverstein). John Goodman plays Detective Dehling, the police officer who is assigned to the case when Randy agrees to take the rap for Utah's murder, who also finds himself infatuated with Jewell.
There's a whole lot in Stan Seidel's screenplay that the viewer is asked to swallow here. The story initially sets up this Jewell character as dumb as a box of rocks and therefore somewhat sympathetic, which makes her instantaneous manipulation of the Randy character a little hard to swallow, but if that's possible, manipulating a lawyer and a police detective couldn't be too much of a stretch.
Director Harold Zwart, who also directed Agent Cody Banks does show a semblance of style in presenting this twisted black comedy. The initial set up of the story with Randy going to see a hitman (Michael Douglas), Carl seeing a shrink (Reba McIntire), and Dehling seeing a priest (Richard Jenkins) to talk about their addiction to this toxic woman is well executed and I also liked each time the three guys see Jewell for the first time, we get a slo-mo closeup of Jewell and the same music playing behind her, but somewhere around the halfway point, he loses control of what he's doing and interest begins to wane before the spectacular finale, a bloody gun battle with the Village People's "YMCA" blasting on the audio.
Zwart has assembled a terrific cast to pull off this improbable tale who appear completely committed to the nuttiness. Dillon is a charmer as Randy and Reiser is a lot of fun as the arrogant Carol and John Goodman, as he always does, steals every scene he's in. Liv Tyler is properly pouty as Jewell and Michael Douglas makes the most of a thankless role, but this movie never completely comes together and staying with it requires a lot of work from the viewer.