Bounce

I had some pretty fucking grand plans this weekend to see three movies (and pay for two), but that was before I made sloppy joes Friday night. Folks, making sloppy joes from scratch is a hell of a lot harder than it looks, and if you get it wrong you'll sit on the toilet shitting out your intestines all weekend. I still don't have a fucking clue what goes into sloppy joes, but here are a few things I am almost positive don't: cinnamon, eggs, butter, one-half cup of salt and isopropyl alcohol. I wish Mrs. Filthy hadn't joined that Oprah book Club so she'd be home on Fridays to monitor what I eat.

After eating the sloppy joes but before feeling the effects, I headed out to the cineplex to see Bounce and then sneak into Ron Howard's Dr. Seuss's How Jim Carrey Fucked the Grinch for Christmas. But, by the time Bounce ended, my bowels were stretched as tight as my wife's stirrup pants and I needed to release them before I broke my ass muscles.

There are movies worth sitting through, even when your bowels are aching to burst, but Bounce isn't one of them. It's a dippy, tedious romance between two people with the on-screen chemistry of noisy refrigerators.

Ben Affleck is a smarmy advertising man (quite a stretch from the smarmy copywriter he played in Forces of Nature) who gives his airline ticket to a TV writer (Tony Goldwyn) so he can stay in Chicago and stick his slimy dick into hot Natasha Henstridge. The plane crashes, killing everyone on board and leaving Affleck feeling really guilty and jumping on the fast track for alcoholism. First, who feels guilty about killing a TV writer, especially one staging a crappy play with "Lilacs" in the title? You're supposed to get a medal for that. Second, turning Affleck into a stumble-bum drunk in one year is an insult to all the people who work their whole lives to do that.

In his recovery from alcoholism, Affleck joins Alcoholics Anonymous and must make amends for his past poor judgment. Apparently, the only mistake he ever made was giving away that airplane ticket, so he goes to apologize to Goldwyn's spouse (the always-pasty Gwyneth Paltrow). It's entirely unclear how he tracks her down trying to lease space in a Strip Mall, but it provides the required and lame "Cute Meet" with a big Rottweiler who doesn't go nearly far enough trying to eat Affleck.

Things get insufferably cute from there because Affleck is too big a pussy to tell her why he has come to see her and instead they fall in love. It's a slow build with lots of tears and lots and lots of talking that doesn't go anywhere because Affleck's big lie hangs over them like a Cleveland Steamer. And just like the steamer, you know this shit's gonna hit you in the chest, the only question is when will it detach from the hairy asshole and land with a dull thud? Well, this steamer hangs on for a long, long time.

Finally, the shit hits the proverbial chest. There is a big crisis when Paltrow finds out who Affleck is and they break up. That they get back together is inevitable, but how is cheesier than that shit under my toenails. Suffice to say that Affleck's character is given a national broadcast opportunity to redeem himself through an impossible speech that's sappier than a Vermont Maple.

It's like Roos purposely wanted me to suffer with my swelling intestines. He shows no sense of pacing. He tells the story so that we know Goldwyn is dead but still have to watch Paltrow mope for fifteen minutes while she thinks he isn't. It's unpleasant, hammy moviemaking with nothing at stake. Then, the entire middle of the movie is the tedium of two actors kissing and crying. There is no growth, just cheesy bumps in the road.

Roos is a good dialog writer lashed to a bad idea. Throughout the movie, there are great snips of dialog that belong to a better movie. In particular, he brings up some interesting ideas about the dead and the responsibilities of those still alive. A couple times in the movie, there were lines of dialog that sounded smart, perceptive, and like something someone would really say. But they're wasted here amid the sticky-sweet bullshit and grinding plot.

Affleck's character is supposed to be redeemed through the story, but that's horseshit. First he's an asshole. Then he's a drunk. Finally, he's a good guy. Even accepting that this transformation is possible, we don't see anything that connects one stage to the next. We're just expected to believe the prick emerges from his boozing like a saint, and with only a single momentary craving for booze.

As a director, Roos ain't such hot shit. The movie looks flat and the settings are boring. It's suburban dipshits in suburban dipshit houses. We see kitchens, commercial real estate and a water park, all filmed drably and head-on. Even Affleck's beach-front condo looks more like a bad museum than a swinger's paradise. Characters don't have anything to do but talk, occasionally while cutting vegetables. There must be so many food-prep scenes in the movies because it's easier for screenwriters to have characters do that than something original.

Roos also gives Affleck and Paltrow way too much space to suck the ass of Oscar. They have the chemistry of two appliances, designed to look pretty together in the kitchen, but not to interact. And they're about as convincing in this romance as my stove and refrigerator would be. They never seem to be listening to each other, just getting their eyes all moist before their next line of dialog. It's probably the kind of shit that the buttlickers at the Academy will eat up, but crying is a cheap substitute for showing an actual range of emotions. Affleck really pisses me off because he always has that shit-eating "Aren't I cute?" smirk on his face. No, anyone who is so fucking sure he's adorable can no longer be cute. He's a self-satisfied prick selling us another load of bullshit, coasting on what he expects us to think of him.

WARNING TO FUCKING PUSSIES AND SISSIES: THE ENDING IS REVEALED IN THIS PARAGRAPH. IF YOU ARE A BIG FUCKING BABY WHOSE ONLY JOY IN LIFE IS BEING SURPRISED BY LAME ENDINGS TO BAD MOVIES, READ NO FURTHER. As often happens in movies where the writer thought he had a good idea but no idea how to fluff it out to two hours, Bounce is driven by a cheesy series of events. First, the accident, then the unlikely event that Affleck can't tell Paltrow the truth. Finally, Paltrow finds out that Affleck gave her husband the ticket by watching a video, and she kicks him out of her house in a "very emotional, very important, very tearful, very long" scene. And Affleck redeems himself by using his time on the stand during a major court case to give a excruciatingly long and corny speech about courage that is a waste not only of the court's time, but also the audience's. It's so long and insipid that any real judge would have said "Shut the fuck up, you windbag."

Of course, Paltrow sees his speech on national TV and realizes "Oh, my God, I really do love that Kenmore Automatic Defrosting, 22 cubic-foot Refrigerator. Oh, and he makes ice cubes!"

It's all cheesy and manipulative. Mr. Roos, find a good director to work with, one who will restrain your worst instincts and use the good shit. Two fingers. Now, if you'll excuse me, those sloppy joes are making more noise.