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Daren in Brief - HEADSCRATCHING MOVIES I
by Daren Foster

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Daren in Brief
Headscratching Movies I

by Daren Foster

So my nomination for the weirdest movie that I’ve seen recently has to go to Hamlet 2. Not weird as in off-beat (although there were certainly vestiges of that) or intentional intellectual, emotional or creative incomprehensibility (but plenty of the unintentional kind). I’m talking weird in the sense of how the thing ever got made in the first place and ultimately released to a wider audience.

Lead Steve Coogan seemed to be acting alone in his very own movie. His performance was at odds with almost everyone and everything else around him. While he is usually a very funny actor and certainly provided two or three belly laughs in Hamlet 2, it was like he’d wandered into the production from a neighbouring set and nobody had the heart to ask him to leave. It was impossible to believe that his character, Dana Marschz, could last a day teaching at a public high school let alone be inspirational to a class full of Hispanic kids ready to be cast in the remake of Stand and Deliver. It was impossible to believe for even a second that he was married to Brie, played by Catherine Keener. It is impossible to believe that anyone would cast Catherine Keener as a character named Brie. It is impossible to believe that David Arquette signed up to play the character he played. I know, I know. It’s David Arquette were talking about but that’s how inconsequential his role was. Not even David Arquette should’ve signed on. David Spade, maybe.

Which makes me think that there was something going on with the script in earlier drafts. The co-writer was Pam Brady who’s penned a number of South Park episodes and was in on writing both the South Park movie and Team America. Director Andrew Fleming, while not an A-lister, certainly has some quirk to his credits; on TV shows like Arrested Development and Grosse Point as well as the flick Dick from a few years back. This combination suggests to me that their script was much better than the film they ultimately made which is how the likes of Coogan and Keener signed on.

Then, as often happens with movies that don’t fit the rigid Hollywood mould, the non-creatives begin to tinker and get their dirty stinking paws all over it, demanding characters be made more likeable, endings that are much more upbeat and that the marketing department is able to market easily. Heaven knows they don’t want to be taxed and mentally challenged to come up with a plan that deviates from the standard operating procedure.

Does this make for a bad movie watching experience with Hamlet 2? Not necessarily. Knowing then what I know now, would I watch it? No, probably not. Still.. still. There was something mesmerizingly jaw-dropping about watching this Frankenstein of a movie lurch through the motions of attempting to be a coherent whole. Depending on your mood, it might be worth the effort. Better than enduring Transformers for what that’s worth.