A Lifeless 'Ordinary'

When director Danny Boyle, writer John Hodge, producer Andrew MacDonald, and star Ewan McGregor cruised over from the U.K. and crashed onto the U.S. film scene last year with the brilliant Trainspotting, cinema got the adrenaline shot that the Pulp Fiction only purported to give. Trainspotting's startling ability to combine black humor, wit, romance, violence and pathos in a story about Scottish heroin addicts marked it as one of the best films of the year, if not the decade. The team embraced their incredibly risky subject matter with energy and vigor, and managed to make commercially palatable a screenplay that Hollywood execs would have (and did) run from screaming.

The trouble with making an extraordinary film is the follow-up--hence the bombastic promotion of A Life Less Ordinary. Set in America this time around, it tells the story of a match made in heaven. Literally. Replete with gun-toting angels, phone conversations with God (a charming uncredited cameo by Sean Connery), botched bank robberies, psychotic dentists, Cameron Diaz, and a lot of guns, the film looks to be a fresh, funny romp around some of the weirder extremities of multi-genre filmmaking.

It's not. The filmmakers embrace their risky material again, but this time they blow it. A Life Less Ordinary starts with all the right ingredients--it's not a complete failure--but something went very wrong in the preparation.

The film opens promisingly enough, as we are introduced to Robert (McGregor), a recently laid-off janitor with a really bad haircut. After having been replaced by a cheap robot and dumped by his gum-chewing girlfriend within the space of a few hours, our shaggy protagonist is at the end of his rope. During a trippy-freak-out-on-the-bed scene (which bears a strong resemblance to the trippy-freak-out-on-the-bed scene in Trainspotting), Robert comes up with a solution: kidnap his ex-boss' daughter Celine (a painfully typecast Diaz), drive away and improvise from there.

What ensues is some of the most embarrassingly forced "Odd Couple"-style romantic comedy this side of the Atlantic. The remainder of the plot revolves around two down-and-out angels (played by Delroy Lindo and a wonderfully peppy Holly Hunter) on a mission to unite Celine and Robert in the face of all sorts of adversity, not the least of which is Celine's blood-lusting father.

For all of its wacky content, the film has strangely subdued feel; the lack of energy is palpable to the viewer. Brian Tufano's camera, which was so sharp and dynamic in Trainspotting and so creepily sedate in Shallow Grave is only able to capture flat, washed out images. Setups that ought to be bold and striking are rendered as drab and sluggish.

In the dark, claustrophobic interior settings of his previous films, Boyle captured a great deal of energy caged up in a small space; even simple scenes in Trainspotting were crackling with intensity. In the great outdoors of America, though, Boyle seems lost, taking in the luscious scenery with huge, flat, boring wide shots.

The problems with the film are not limited to stylistic issues: McGregor and Diaz display about as much chemistry as a pile of salt and, well, another pile of salt. It is difficult to tell whether or not the two actors really have no connection at all or if the script is to blame; either way, something has gone terribly wrong somewhere in the creative process.

Diaz, in the umpteenth reprise of her standard snotty bitch role (She's the One, Feeling Minnesota), seems barely able to even go through the motions: Blah blah blah, I'm cold and heartless, blah blah blah, now I've learned to love and be vulnerable. Diaz always gives the impression that she actually is a good actress, but until she starts taking roles that give her a little room to work, audiences will never know for sure.

John Hodge's screenplay is an uncomfortable mix of romantic-comedy cliches, botched-crime scenarios and sudden outbursts of violence that come across as neither funny nor appalling, but merely silly and misplaced. In Trainspotting, Hodge demonstrated his mastery of a technique wherein cartoonish, exaggerated characters interact with frighteningly realistic characters to great comedic and dramatic effect. Here, though, all of the characters are cartoons, and with no contrast (and no reason for the audience to care about them), the film becomes reliant solely on Ewan McGregor's big smile as a lure for audience involvement. McGregor is a handsome guy, but no mug could save these flimsy characterizations--especially in conjunction with that ridiculous hair.

Pacing is problematic as well: opening up at hyper-speed, the movie rushes to get through the exposition necessary for the convoluted plot. After the kidnapping, though, the action slows almost to a halt; the rest of the movie moves sluggishly, with brief speedy sections. The aggravation of this halting progress is compounded by the fact that during the lulls, rather than actually develop his characters, Boyle chooses instead to meander around the lifeless world that he has created.

Amidst all of this mess, Holly Hunter stands out as the film's shining star. In the film's most hilarious performance by far, she creates strangely uproarious and memorable scenes with ease. There's nothing like seeing a barely-five-foot woman point a Glock at the camera and snarl, "Don't fucking move!"

A Life Less Ordinary is not a terrible film. It contains flashes of brilliance, mostly limited to the occasionally striking imagery and camerawork. It is clear that a talented cast and crew have put together this movie, but its flaws are too great and plentiful to make it required viewing.