Enemies of Laughter

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: D     Film: C

 

 

So, what would you do if you had David Paymer, Judge Reinhold, Rosalind Chao, Bea Arthur, Peter Falk, Vanessa Angel, Daphne Zuniga, Kathy Griffin, and Marilu Henner as actors in your movie?  Well, apparently, the answer for director Joey Travolta (yes, John’s brother) and screenwriter Glen Merzer is put them in a movie where their talent is wasted and the story goes absolutely nowhere.  Enemies of Laughter is yet another movie about an unsuccessful writer who’s stuck not doing the writing he/she really wants to do, but at the same time searches for love amid the endless range of bad date after bad date.  (Have fun!  How many movies can you name that follow this formula?)

 

David Paymer stars as Paul Halpern, a somewhat successful television writer who is unsuccessful as a playwright, which is what he really wants to be.  He tries to get his private life in order by finding Ms. Right, but all his prospects just aren’t right for him.  At the same time, Paul’s best friend, Sam (Judge Reinhold), is secretly making a documentary about Paul’s life featuring Paul’s parents, past girlfriends, and other people from Paul’s life.  Paul seems to be back on track with everything when Carla (Rosalind Chao), a play director, wants to direct his play.  The only problem?  It just happens to be the one play Paul thinks is cursed.

 

The only redeeming quality of this film is the performances of Bea Arthur and Peter Falk as Paul’s parents.  They’re a riot to listen to as they go on and on about how disappointed they are with their son and how they think he’s a complete failure.  It’s exactly what you’d never expect any parent to say about their child.  Unfortunately, their performances are surrounded by a sea of other mediocre performances and a plot that drags on and on.  The first meeting between Paul and Carla is in a restaurant that lasts at least 20 minutes, maybe even more.  That’s a huge portion of a film that is only 91 minutes to begin with.  Each scene is basically the same scene over and over again with no real progress in the story until there’s 10 minutes left in the film.  There are a few sight gags and some funny one-liners, but they’re too few and far-between to keep the story funny.  Perhaps Travolta and Merzer are the true Enemies of Laughter, as the funny moments are hard to come by in this film.

 

The picture is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio.  The colors are bright and rich, and nothing looks faded.  There was a jumpiness to the picture montage that opened the film, but other than that, things were fine.  When the quality switched to video for the documentary Sam was making, though, colors seemed too bright and washed out, and there might have been a compression issue with one person (either that or she had an oddly shaped head).  There were only a few instances of dust and debris on the image, as well.  The audio is given in 5.1 Surround Sound (no indication if it’s Dolby Digital or something else).  For a movie like this where it is almost entirely dialogue based, the mix was used only rarely as most of the audio came from the front speakers.  All audio levels were fine and clear.

 

Extras?  Well, no actually.  And I mean absolutely none!  I’d have loved to hear some directory commentary so maybe I could try to understand his thought process.  But no, all we get are chapter selections.

 

What I want to know is how these moviemakers got all these acclaimed actors (well, some are acclaimed) to appear in such a bad movie.  For most of them, they only had one scene and that was it.  Enemies of Laughter doesn’t bring anything original to the screen.  From the way it was presented, it might have faired better as a theatrical production than as a film.

 

 

-   Antonio Lopez