One Hour Photo
-Wade
In case you've missed it on previous pages published herein, I'm not a big Robin Williams guy. His comedic acts consists of three characters: ignorant southerner, drug-addict African American, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. His speed-of-light transitions between these charaters make jokes incoherent and impossible to follow. In movies, he seems to have even less range. While I like him in flicks such as "Good Morning Vietnam", "Mrs. Doubtfire", and "Good Will Hunting"-- can you honestly tell me the difference between Adrian Cronauer, Dan Hillard, and Sean Maguire?
So my interest was piqued by last year's trend of "Robin Williams as bad guy" films. We saw "Insomnia" in the theater... eh. I think my experience was tainted by the long-since washed up Robert DeNiro. Or was that Al Pacino. Does anyone really know the difference anymore? It seems like they're both standing on the sidewalk every morning in Hollywood like immigrant workers, waiting to be picked up by in pickups, not caring what job they do as long as they're working.
Harsh, maybe. But, really-- "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle"?
I digress. I wasn't really that excited about Williams' role in "Insomnia"-- my favorite part was when he got shot, frankly. But on Saturday night, we decided to give good ol' Mork from Ork another chance by renting "One Hour Photo". (This was actually not our first choice, "Catch Me if You Can" was out. I love that Leo!) Fortunately, I think we made a good choice.
Williams plays Sy Parrish, who works at SavMart's photo-processing desk. He plays your standard loner. You ever wonder if people in those places get off by seeing other peoples' photos? Well, Sy does just that. He is obsessed with one family who regularly gets their pics developed at SavMart. He's got some pretty creepy fantasies, but it seems like Sy is just a lonely guy looking for acceptance from someone, somewhere.
He plays the "kook" role very well-- although during one scene he's supposed to be violently angry, and it doesn't really come off. I kept expecting him to smile and break into Schwarzenegger breaking into Ronald Reagan breaking into Gomer Pyle. Goollleeee.
Despite that, he does well enough for you to spend the money to rent this. It never really was grippingly scary, but he held my attention for 96 minutes. Which is 95 minutes longer than usual.
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