Michael Traeger, 2005, US, 100 mins
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Tim Blake Nelson, Joe Pantoliano, William Fichtner, Glenne Headly, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Lauren Graham, Patrick Fugit, Ted Danson, Isaiah Washington, John Hawkes
Review by Hemanth Kissoon
“Boris gives it to Bianca in the butt as she diffuses the bomb.”
This comes from a scenario devised by the townsfolk of Butterface Fields as they decide to make the first amateur community porn film. Bridges’ Andy Sargentee is renowned by those around him for his hair-brained schemes. Not well off, and reeling from the wealth his son is now surrounded with due to his ex-wife remarrying, he decides to make his riches by joining arguably the most financially successful industry in the world (along with gambling and drugs). He musters all the sad-sacks, loners and social misfits that are his friends and they begin their hoped-for, ground-breaking masterpiece.
This is a kind of family feel-good film, believe it or not, or at least one in The Full Monty vein. The plot for that film seems to have been re-tooled and Americanised with some polish, and hey presto we have The Moguls. The filmmakers seem to think if the Brits can make an Oscar-nominated global hit, so can they. What they seemed not to have factored into their thinking was that The Full Monty is over-rated, sentimental, humourless and offensive. The offence lies with the fact that the label “comedy” was slapped on it. The Full Monty is actually a poignant social comment on the fall-out of globalisation wrapped up in trite two-dimensional characterisation.
The similarities between The Full Monty and The Moguls are that both have the working class at their centre, have characters coming out and focus on a divorced man with a son he is trying to provide for. There is the putting on of a spectacle to raise the community’s spirits, and the gang trying to pull off the central conceit is portrayed as a bunch of losers.
What astounds is why such a talented cast would be in this film. Bridges is usually a stamp that a film is worth watching – he picks interesting projects. There are great character actors, such as Nelson, Pantoliano, Washington and Fichtner. There are the stars of television past and present: Danson (Cheers), Graham (Gilmore Girls) and Hawkes (Deadwood). Plus leading ladies that seemed to have dropped from the limelight, Headly (Dick Tracy) and Tripplehorn (Waterworld).
For all the movie’s flaws, it has an undeniable charm. Porn is hard to romanticise but the players and filmmakers certainly attempt to do so. The script, though, lets down a talented cast with predictability and unabashed mawkishness, which, had that been reined in, would definitely have made a more satisfying film. For equally corny comparisons, see Elizabethtown and On a Clear Day.
The ending, however, saves the film from being dire. It is surprising the way events are tied up. The Moguls is one of those rare movies, like last year’s The Skeleton Key, which is clichéd and predictable, yet has an ending which almost resuscitates a film dead-on-arrival.
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Universal Pictures have announced the UK DVD release of The Moguls for 19th June 2006 priced at £15.99.
Extras include 13 deleted scenes and a featurette ‘The Moguls behind The Moguls’.
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