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Review by: Jack Foley | Rating:
One
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES: Bobby and Peter Farrelly commentary;
8 deleted scenes (approx. 14 mins). Featurette 'It’s Funny:
The Farrelly Formula'; Featurette 'Stuck Together – Bringing
Stuck On You To The Screen'; Featurette 'Making It Stick –
The Make Up Effects of Stuck On You'; Blooper reel; Inside Look
– Alien Versus Predator
behind the scenes; Inside Look – Dodgeball behind the scenes.
IT’S been some time since the Farrelly brothers delivered
something as hysterically funny as There’s Something About
Mary, and, sadly, their dry spell shows little sign of finding
an oasis.
Stuck on You, while humorous in places, is more of a missed opportunity
than anything really terrible, and a marked improvement on Shallow
Hal - but you can’t help feeling that, perhaps, they
are trying to work from the flimsiest of material.
The film finds Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as Siamese twins,
Bob and Walt, whose relationship is put to the test when one of
them opts to leave their cosy existence, and head for the bright
lights of Hollywood, in search of a film career.
The inevitable physical farce which follows is occasionally sweet,
sometimes funny, but largely predictable and way too sentimental,
as the brothers pursue inevitable career paths, before arriving
at the decision to undergo the potentially fatal operation of
separating themselves.
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By opting to tip-toe the boundary between good taste and bad,
the Farrelly’s constantly feel as though they are walking
a tightrope, but here they appear to be striving too hard not
to be deemed offensive.
Hence, the movie feels as though it is bending over backwards
to do the right thing, and potentially hilarious scenarios feel
muted by the writer-directors’ desire to keep things trouble-free.
With that in mind, however, there are some good sight gags, while
the film contains a number of decent performances, which serve
to keep things entertaining throughout.
Damon, especially, shows a nice line in comic timing, not usually
associated with the star, while Kinnear brings a great deal of
charisma to his role, making the central relationship one that
is worth caring about.
Eva Mendes, too, excels at playing it ‘ditsy’, but
isn’t given the screen-time she deserves, while Cher’s
self-deprecating turn as herself, still clinging to past Oscar
glory, is worth a few throwaway chuckles, as is Meryl Streep’s
even crisper cameo.
It’s just that no matter how good the cast remains, they
struggle with the lightweight material, and much of what takes
place feels hopelessly contrived. This is, after all, a one-joke
movie stretched across nearly two hours, which feels like a marathon
journey.
The giggles come courtesy of a film crew’s attempts to shoot
Walt without his brother appearing in the picture, or Bob’s
attempts to woo his girlfriend without telling her he is a Siamese
twin, while the occasional one-liner has you pining for more;
but there is not enough going on to sustain the interest over
such a long period of time.
Perhaps it’s time for the Farrelly’s to stop relying
on physical, or mental, deformity to find their laughs, and attempt
to broaden their horizons. It’s hard to get that attached
to Stuck on You.
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