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Reviews
You, Me and Dupree (2006)
The enigma of Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson is an enigma. Sometimes, usually with the aid of Wes Anderson, he'll produce some quite good work - offbeat and personable, if not profound. On other occasions, such as You Me and Dupree, for which he has a production credit, he'll churn out formulaic tosh. That said, he is adrift in this shapeless film, directed with no discernible flair by the Russos (straight from TV, it appears, and unable to cope without the guidance of a solid script. Incidentally, I entertain the idea that the writer, who has no prior credits on IMDb, is an anagram of another (too embarrassed) scribe). Wilson is barely supported by Matt Damon, as usual underplaying his role so that the lead character here verges on the invisible, and Kate Hudson, playing a sort of Drew Barrymore-lite: one of those ringletted, irritatingly ethereal roles reserved for the girlfriend/wife in modern Hollywood (see Beckinsale in Click - a greater waste, for, unlike Hudson or Barrymore, she can actually act). The plot revolves around a young couple who, moving into a large toney house that apparently has only one bedroom, are forced to take in the husband's longtime best friend. An irresponsible loser on first appearance, Dupree is initially played by Owen with a hint of the sinister, somewhat like Rhys Ifans' creepy stalker in Enduring Love. This aspect of his relationship with 'me' is not developed and the audience is left with a stunted buddy film in which the central male-male relationship impinges but ultimately redeems the inviolable heterosexual union. Michael Douglas's narcissistic father-in-law is merely a foil, an obstacle that Me has to overcome to reclaim proprietary rights over his wife and, by extension, his life. As in many Hollywood films too lazy to do anything interesting (and here The Breakup is a salutary exception), the film's trajectory is Karate-kid clichiac, and leads up to a desultory happy ending. The conventional subtext is drearily about finding yourself, though this does provide one of the few humorous moments - at the expense of the inane motivational speaker industry. An easy target, to be sure, but one must be grateful for such fleeting moments in as drab a cinematic experience as this.
Baby's Day Out (1994)
Terrific piece of post modernism
There seems little point in regurgitating the plot line as it is both basic to the point of invisibility and a rehash of the dreary Home Alone series. The film is a cartoon devoid of the moralising one would expect in a children's film, concerned as it most obviously is so, with the fundamental laws of cause and effect (pretend you are a banana, be prepared to be attacked by a hungry gorilla). Even the baby is more aware of these universal principles than the villains, who spend the entirety of the film being assaulted by inanimate objects in the same manner as Wylie E Coyote. Like the aforementioned canine, the criminal's inherent badness and the nefariousness of their motives dictate their failure, no matter what form their actions may take. The two standout scenes are the fiery groin number (see choice dialogue above) and the zoo based action. Like much of the film (a 'tissue of quotations' indeed), the ending, set on a building site, borrows entirely from elements of popular culture, including the Donkey Kong video game and the Donald Duck cartoon 'The Riveter'. It would be a stern hearted viewer indeed who could not see the funny side of someone bad being whacked in the face by a falling hammer