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Movie Review - The Man (2005)
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(What this rating means)
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| Director: |
Les Mayfield |
| Starring: |
Samuel L. Jackson, Eugene Levy, nobody else I give a flip about |
| Rated: |
PG-13 (for language, rude dialogue and some violence) |
| Length: |
83 minutes |
| Genre: |
Action/Comedy |
| Tagline: |
One guy walks the walk. The other talks and talks. |
| Studio: |
New Line Cinema |
| Website: |
The Man |
| Release: |
September 9, 2005 |
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PLOT
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Derrick Vann (Jackson) is a Special Agent on a mission to find the man who killed his partner. Andy Fidler (Levy)
sales dental equipment and travels from Wisconsin to Detroit for a dental convention. Naturally, he ends up in the
wrong place at the wrong time and is mistaken for Vann. Vann is now forced to haul Fidler around with him to try
to catch the bad guys. A painfully unoriginal and astonishingly humorless movie ensues.
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JOHNNY'S TAKE
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I like Samuel L. Jackson. Really, I do. He has enough quality movies under his belt that whenever his name is
attached to a film you can at least feel there is a semblance of hope that it'll be entertaining. Then there's
Twisted. And xXx: State of the Union.
And now The Man, which, to my surprise, is the worst offense of them all.
It was Augustine who defined evil as "the absence of the good." Well, it's Johnny Betts who is defining The
Man as the absence of the humor. It was troubling when the audience was expected to howl with uproarious
laughter over Levy mispronouncing a foreign taxi driver's name as "Bedwetter" (spelled "Bedwettier" and pronounced
"Bed-wet-tee-ay"). It was beginning to look hopeless once it was obvious that the director thought Levy's pants
falling down was some sort of comedic pantheon. But it started to become downright insulting when Levy informed
Jackson that "red meat doesn't agree with me" right before partaking of a "tasty burger," as Jackson called it
(in a desperate attempt by the director to show us how clever he is by referencing Pulp Fiction).
You see, immediately after Levy's pants accidentally fell down and 1/5th of the audience chuckled with glee, I
turned to Stephanie and said, "How long before the fart jokes come?" I didn't have to wait long to see my prophecy
fulfilled. As soon as Levy announced his red meat warning, I rolled my eyes and replied, "Here we go." And there
we went, indeed. Welcome to the sure-fire sign that a writer is desperate to appeal to the lowest common
denominator - flatulence. Throw in a joke later about peeing in a pool and the whole trailer park goes home happy.
On a positive note - at least I didn't have to worry about tending to any busted guts.
I think it's fair to say you can accurately judge how unfunny a movie is when you're so desperate to awaken your
brain that you decide to quantify the laughs that the movie manages to elicit. The ultimate condemnation of
The Man's humor comes in the fact that my number of laughs equaled zero. You read that right - I managed
to keep from laughing a single time during the 83-minute runtime.
Admittedly, there are a couple of funny moments where I reluctantly smiled, and if these scenes had been in another
movie then I may have laughed, but by the time these brief respites from the humorless zone arrived I was already so
bored into a stupor that I just didn't have it in me to even politely chuckle.
Note to writers: When you have a joke that isn't funny then believe me when I say that using this same joke throughout
the movie isn't going to magically make it a laugh riot. A bad joke doesn't automatically become a side-splitter
after it's used a certain number of times. I appreciate continuity but not in this case.
Welcome to my "Worst 5" of the year list, The Man. And welcome to the AFAP (Anything For A Paycheck) Club,
Mr. Jackson. I'm sure you and Ben Kingsley will become fast friends.
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ODDS & ENDS
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- The Man is the least entertaining movie I have seen this year.
- Yes, that means I enjoyed it less than A Sound of Thunder. The problem
is that The Man is classified as a comedy; therefore, it's trying to be funny. Unfortunately, that means when
the comedy doesn't work it ends up being a complete chore to sit through. It doesn't fall into the "so bad it's
entertaining" category like A Sound of Thunder.
- SNL's Horatio Sanz has a small role. Sanz' presence in any movie automatically drops that movie's rating by
at least one full mark.
- Samuel L. Jackson desperately needs a new agent.
- The last supposed "comedy" that I watched that was as devoid of humor as The Man was Dracula: Dead
and Loving It.
- In honor of the two horribly unfunny movies mentioned above, Johnny is determined to somehow connect Samuel
L. Jackson to Josh Brolin through Dracula: Dead and Loving It...
- Samuel L. Jackson was in Jackie Brown with Bridget Fonda who was in Single White Female with
Steven Weber who was in Dracula: Dead and Loving It with Amy Yasbeck who was in Dillinger with
Yvonne Suhor who was in The Young Riders with Josh Brolin who was in Hollow Man with
Kevin Bacon.
- Johnny rules.
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MAMA'S APPROVAL
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The least they could have done is made this family friendly, but nope, they decided that was not the route to
take. There is quite a bit of profanity (including G-d**n, at least one complete "f" bomb, and several "s"
words). There's also an extremely unfunny scene where Levy tells Jackson to say "for crying out loud" whenever
he's about to say the "f" word. This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to make it sound like the "f" word
is being used several times because apparently somebody thinks that's funny?
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TRAILER COMPARISON
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No matter how bad or unfunny you think the trailer is, well, the movie is even worse.
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THE GIST
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I'm completely aware that plenty of audience members were laughing during this movie, but The Man was
possibly the unfunniest theatrically released "comedy" I have seen in at least 10 years. If for some strange
reason the trailer looks absolutely hilarious to you then you may enjoy the movie, but I don't dare recommend this
to anyone. I wouldn't even waste my time when it is eventually airing on the USA channel 2 times a day.
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