Cast: Owen Wilson, Sara Foster, Morgan Freeman, Charlie Sheen, Gary Sinese, Bebe Neuwirth, Gregory Sporleder, Vinnie Jones
Director: George Armitage
Producers: George Armitage, Steve Bing, Jorge Saralegui
Screenplay: Sebastian Gutierrez, based on the novel by Elmore Leonard
Cinematography: Jeffrey L. Kimball
Music: George S. Clinton
U.S. Distributor: Warner Brothers
Newcomer Sara Foster is gorgeous - almost as gorgeous as the eye-popping Hawaiian flora and fauna. With Foster's toned body perfectly fitted into a bikini and the waves crashing behind her, it's almost enough to make a viewer forget that The Big Bounce is a caper movie. And, while there are obvious advantages to making us forget about the plot and goggle over the sights, it's not the best approach for a film that's supposed to be about grifters and double-crosses. Travelogues may be pretty to look at, but they're low on energy, and that's not the best descriptor one would want for a motion picture (loosely) based on an Elmore Leonard novel.
The name of the hero is Jack Ryan - no, not that Jack Ryan. This guy's a surfer dude, played with slacker-like efficiency by the always laid-back Owen Wilson. In his voiceover narration, he informs us that his two best pals are bad luck and bad choices, and running from his problems has led him to Hawaii. There, courtesy of taking a baseball bat to the head of his construction site foreman, Lou Harris (Vinnie Jones), he once again finds himself being scrutinized by the law. A local judge, Walter Crewes (Morgan Freeman), takes an interest in Jack, offering him some good advice, a great one-liner ("God's an imaginary friend for grownups"), and a job working as a handyman at his bungalow resort. While there, his entanglement with Nancy Hayes (Sara Foster) begins. She's a femme fatale who's manipulating Jack while sleeping with the rich and dangerous Ray Ritchie (Gary Sinese) and toying with his not-so-bright partner, Bob Rogers Jr. (Charlie Sheen). And, despite Walter's assertion that "sometimes, everything is exactly as it seems," things are never that way in stories based on Elmore Leonard material.
The biggest problem with The Big Bounce is its tone. Feather light and fancy free (in part due to Wilson's "aw shucks" charm and Jeffrey L. Kimball's nature-oriented cinematography), the mood is wrong for a thriller, even one that aspires to have a hyphenated "comedy" appended to the term ("thriller-comedy"). There's no tension, and, as a result, little suspense. And, while some of the convolutions and contrivances come straight out of the film noir genre, "black" is about the last word anyone would use to describe The Big Bounce. The entire caper seems like a throw-in, a way to wrap up a movie that's more about the evident chemistry between Foster's Nancy and Wilson's Jack. Director George Armitage (Grosse Pointe Blank) gets us to care about Jack, but not about whether he gets away with the stolen $200,000. When it comes to the theft, things are so badly choreographed and confusingly assembled that the climax fails to satisfy.
At a short 88 minutes, The Big Bounce has the feel of something where a lot of exposition ended up on the cutting room floor in an attempt to tighten things up. (The 1969 version, starring Ryan O'Neal, clocked in at 102 minutes). What remains lives and dies based on how much the viewer invests in Nancy and Jack. We know she's no good, but the two trade enough saucy barbs to pique our interest, and both actors flash enough flesh to push the boundaries of the PG-13 rating. A classic like The Big Sleep can thrive based largely on the mutual magnetism of the leads in spite of numerous narrative fissures, but, as likable as Wilson and Foster may be, they're not Bogart and Bacall. The Big Bounce has many of the same problems as The Big Sleep, but few of its strengths.
There are a number of nice supporting turns. Gary Sinese, a character actor with enormous range (he's best known as Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump), is solidly nasty as the arrogant Ray. A typecast Charlie Sheen is good playing tough-but-dumb. Morgan Freeman, despite being the "mastermind" behind much of what's going on, is underused. And Bebe Neuwirth gets to juggle booze and guns.
Some of the more overtly comedic scenes in the movie come across as quirky but not especially funny. In a sequence that's reminiscent of something out of Preston Sturges by way of "Three's Company," Nancy tries to pacify two would-be lovers at the same time by shuttling back-and-forth between the one downstairs on the couch (Bob Jr.) and the one upstairs in the bedroom (Jack). On another occasion, Jack and Bob Jr. have a knock-down brawl that ends with Jack giving his rival tips on how to treat a bloody nose. While there's an amusement value to some of these vignettes, they lack punch. And that's how I feel about the movie as a whole. There's some entertainment value, but the production as a whole is unfocused, which leads to a vague sense of discouragement.
© 2004 James Berardinelli