Forget
About It (2006/Allumination DVD)
Picture: C+ Sound:
C+ Extras: C- Film: D
Let me preface what's sure to be a scathing review of
the mob/geezer comedy, Forget About
It, by admitting I'm a sucker for movies about organized crime
(serious or comical) as well as cantankerous Grumpy Old Men-style humor. Forget About It also has a veteran
cast of actors I like, which made me approach it with far more good will than I
do most movies these days. It stars the always-entertaining Burt Reynolds,
who I've been rooting for to regain some of his former box-office
glory for over 20 years now; Robert Loggia, whose gruff presence is a
plus to any movie; World War II hero, D-Day survivor and Reynolds' most
frequent co-star, Charles Durning, who's one of the all-time great
character actors; and one of the sexiest women to ever grace the
screen, Raquel Welch, who was 64 when Forget About It was filmed four years ago and still
looks a lot better than most women half her age.
I have a feeling, though, the aforementioned actors had no
idea what a group of self-involved, amateurish hacks they would be
collaborating with when they signed on to appear in Forget About It, one of the most glaringly
incompetent films I've seen in a while. If you're wondering why my rating
above is a D, it's because a D is the lowest I'm allowed to rate
a DVD release on this website. Otherwise, this
embarrassment would surely get an F.
I don't know if Reynolds and Welch, who co-starred together
decades ago in 100 Rifles
(1969) and Fuzz
(1972), will ever see the finished product that is Forget About It, or if they
even care, but here's a strange case of a movie downplaying its
stars and having them share separate screen time with a bunch of no-names
who are clearly acting in another movie where even the footage clearly looks
different from the footage shot with Reynolds and company. It's as
if someone used Reynolds and Welch's names to attract investors only to abandon
the original idea in favor of making a quasi-home movie showcasing their
personal friends intercut with only a portion of the footage shot with the name
actors. But whatever the case, Forget
About It
is an inept, choppy, painful-to-watch mess that looks like it was thrown
together by rank amateurs. So few films get made
today featuring older actors in leading roles that it's a real
shame such an opportunity fails so miserably.
Reynolds, Loggia and Durning play three old buddies living in a
trailer-park retirement community outside of Phoenix, Arizona. From what
little is shown, the highlight of their uneventful days is competing against
one another to see who can hit golf balls the farthest out into the
desert. Reynolds' character is raising his rebellious teen-age niece for
some reason, but we're never specifically told why. Like everything else
in the movie, it's a plot point given little or no thought.
Meanwhile, two new residents arrive in the trailer park enlivening
the old guys' empty lives -- a flirtatious former Las Vegas showgirl (Welch)
and a former New Jersey Mafioso (Michael Paloma) turned government
informant who's hiding out in the Witness Relocation Program with $4.3
million of stolen mob loot. Now here's how this stinkbomb
really becomes odious: Somehow the people who had final cut of the film had the
idea that we'd rather see more of this Michael Paloma guy and other
subplots about buffoon gangsters and a couple of crooked FBI agents than
the quartet of stars. After seeing the totally disjointed final
result, it's easy to see why Forget
About It sat on the shelf for a few years tied up in
litigation -- it was filmed in early 2004 and got a couple theatrical
test bookings in late 2006 before virtually going directly to DVD in the first
days of 2008.
This is one of those horrible movies, as the late Gene Siskel
used to say, where it would have been a lot more interesting to simply watch the stars sitting
around talking than anything that ends up on screen. I know for a fact
that if given the same budget a friend of mine with a filmmaking degree
and I could make a much better film with Reynolds, Welch, Loggia and
Durning. First, I'd drop the whole stolen mob money part and limit
the film's focus to three elderly men who become invigorated when a
sexy woman moves into the neighborhood. With this cast,
that angle should be fun.
However, Forget
About It is such an ungodly mess that it often plays
as if it were edited and assembled without the slightest sense of
continuity. The noticeably incongruent footage shot in New Jersey without
the stars exhibits the grainy look of having been shot on bad HD, and it often
looks as if the director (B.J. Davis is credited) doesn't know where to
put the camera -- for instance, watch how sloppily a fight scene outside a
strip club between the three old guys and some bikers is put together.
Furthermore, whenever the four veteran actors are center
stage it seems as if the "film"-makers can't wait to cut
away from them and get back to the no-names.
Not only did the far superior Grumpy Old Men come to mind while suffering through 85
minutes of Forget About It,
but also an even better film about senior citizens, the wonderful, incredibly
underrated and under-seen Wrestling
Ernest Hemingway (1993) starring Robert Duvall and Richard
Harris. Emphasizing sensitive, well-observed writing
and superb acting, Wrestling Ernest
Hemingway is a movie with a lot of heart that's about
well-defined characters. Forget
About It, on the other hand, could care less about its
characters as they aimlessly stumble though an idiotic, senseless plot.
If you have an inclination to watch this film, forget about it and get
your hands on a copy of Wrestling
Ernest Hemingway instead. If I can get at least 10 people
to see Wrestling Ernest Hemingway
from writing about this worthless dud, the time I wasted watching and
reviewing Forget About
It will have been
worth it.
The DVD of Forget About
It is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with average
picture quality and average Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo-like sound. The only
extras are a trailer for this and four other films distributed by
Allumination FilmWorks.
- Chuck O'Leary
