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Two If by Sea
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There
is a bad smell emanating from this movie from its first moments: the jazzy jump
cuts that do not quite work, the weird shots of the backs of our protagonists'
heads. We are instantly plunged into a road movie – a cross between Nouvelle
Vague memories and Smokey and the Bandit (1977) – but, from the word go, none of the ingredients gel. It aims – I think!
– to be a cross between a knockabout heist movie and a low-life romantic comedy.
What
about the characters? Frank (Denis Leary) and Roz (Sandra Bullock) are
supposedly real, down-and-dirty, working class Americans. On the road, they
bicker furiously about Batman movies,
the musical Cats, and supermodels.
And, before the story begins, they have clumsily stolen a Matisse worth
millions, setting a phalanx of cops and FBI agents on their trail. (This inciting
detail would seem to be inspired by a real-life criminal case from 1994
involving an Australian film director, a romance novelist, and a Picasso sketch
snatched from the home of a wealthy Californian.)
Once the initial chase peters out and the pair take refuge in a luxurious mansion by the water, the film alternates between three utterly dreary plot lines. There is the slapstick spectacle of a gaggle of low-class crooks en route to claim the Matisse. There is the detective work carried out by a grumpy, Irish-black FBI guy (Yaphet Kotto). And there is the relationship crisis between Frank and Roz – this rom-com aspect being, bizarrely, the only one featured in the typically deceptive American trailer.
Roz,
as it happens, wants more from life than an uncommitted partner and petty
theft. So she flirts with a sophisticated, plummily British art collector/horse
breeder, Evan (Stephen Dillane). Frank behaves badly and defensively in
response, but knows that he must take decisive action. This leads to a terrible
sequence where Frank catches a fish (with a gun) and cooks it. Roz is unimpressed;
so was I.
It
is often said that American movies avoid the issue of social class and its
divisions. Many vulgar comedies in the Porky’s (1981-1985 & 2009) vein do treat this topic, but in a brutal, populist
spirit: they humiliate representatives of the highly cultured classes and exalt
animal behaviour. Two If By Sea tries
to place a bet every which way (but loose). It bashes the rich while
mercilessly mocking an “underclass” of crooks and ordinary dreamers – and ends
up feebly pleading for bourgeois respectability. Meanwhile, angling for a
bullish working-class vulgarity, the film also juices a slightly exotic,
non-American quality – as if the producers were inspired by some tough-minded
UK comedies. Hence, one assumes, the hiring of Australian director Bill Bennett
for the job.
This
is an ugly, empty, unpleasurable movie on every level, straining for an
off-centre, “indie” feel. I have yet to be convinced that comedy is Bennett’s
forte (see Jilted [1987] or Spider and Rose [1994]). When working in
this genre, his visual style becomes ungainly and overwrought, and his actors
flail about at alarmingly different energy levels. The overall pitch is just
never right – and, whenever in doubt, Bennett throws in yet another shot of
some oaf falling over.
Before
this movie, I assumed I could like absolutely anything with Denis Leary in it. Whether
playing a manic, sub-proletrian crook in The
Ref (1994), a sleek gang leader in Judgment Night (1993) or the vicious, seething
patriarch of The Neon Bible (1995), Leary is an actor with a riveting, multi-faceted
screen persona – always teetering on a thin line between brittle comedy and
hard drama.
As
co-writer, Leary clearly intended Two if
By Sea to extend the range of both himself and Bullock, giving them some
rough-and-tumble authenticity beyond the usual screen stereotypes. But it’s a
difficult call: Leary usually doesn’t try to play for the pathos option; it
seems foreign to his persona. The trouble with this film is that Leary finds it
virtually impossible to make himself over into a romantic guy, someone that you
really want to see get back with his girl and make their relationship work out
OK. And Bullock is handed even less to work with.
It
is hard, in the event, to imagine a movie that could possibly make either of
these performers any less appealing.
MORE Bennett: Deck Dogz, The Nugget, In a Savage Land, Kiss or Kill © Adrian Martin February 1996 |
