Saving
Silverman
This movie is a train-wreck in so many
ways that I don’t even know where to start. They blew a semi-clever
concept about male bonding, in which two buddies try to pry an old friend away from a
controlling girlfriend. Probably even worse is the fact that they took a cast that has
been very good in other films, including Jason Biggs (American Pie), Steve Zahn (That
Thing You Do!), Jack Black (High Fidelity), R. Lee Ermey (Full Metal Jacket)
and Amanda Peet (The Whole Nine Yards) and totally wasted anything they had to
offer.
The film is clunkily directed by Dennis Dugan, who once upon a time was an okay
light actor (Richie Brockelman, Private Detective) but has long toiled behind the
scenes on a series of stunningly unfunny "comedies" (Problem Child, Happy
Gilmore, Beverly Hills Ninja, Big Daddy.)
The film stumbles from astonishingly
unlikely situation after astonishingly unlikely situation. Peet plays a character that is
so abhorrent that no sane person would ever date her -- no matter how pretty she is -- and
no audience would ever believe for a second that Biggs will end up with her. (Personal
note to Amanda Peet: be very careful. Your early films showed you to be beautiful, funny
and a little kooky. You have played essentially the same girlfriend-from-hell role in this
film and your previous stinker Whipped. This is not something you want to get
typecast into if you want to have a career in two years.)
This movie is so lazy that it
thinks the audience will take it as a given that because the three friends like Neil
Diamond they have to be losers without ever exploring why that would be. Diamond himself
does a good-natured cameo (though his acting hasn’t improved all that much since The
Jazz Singer.)
And the less said the better about the supposedly comical scenes
involving car hit-and-runs, stun-guns to the genitals, raccoon attacks and butt implants.
The worst sin perpetrated by Saving Silverman is that it’s a comedy that
isn’t even remotely funny. (2/01)
Jay S. Jacobs
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Revised:
November 16, 2022.
