The Big Empty (2003)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: C+ Film: C+
I like
Jon Favreau, even after Elf and
especially after Made, so I was
curious to see what he would do starring in someone else’s film. Writer/director Steve Anderson tries to put
him in a comedy about fame and emptiness called The Big Empty (2003), but it seems more preoccupied in showing off
all of its name guest actors to the independent film going audience than ever
really developing a story or a point.
To move
things along, his character is given $25,000 to deliver a suitcase with
mysterious contents. This already feels
like later generation storytelling we have already encountered from Quentin
Tarantino to The Coen Brothers, but using this McGuffin (Hitchcock’s term for
something that gets the characters moving, but the audience could care less
about) backfires as the characters are as uninteresting as the motivation.
It is not
that it is an immature work or outright silly, but it is just too choppy for a
feature film. It runs 92 minutes and still
cannot fill its time, even with many likable cast members. Anderson may have some good taste in
films, but all he can to is vaguely reference that love, without knowing what
to do with it. That’s a shame, because
the only thing that prevented a good film from happening here was inexperience,
distraction and nothi9ng to say. They
had the materials to make a good film otherwise, but it falls through.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is far better than the full screen image
offered on the other side of the DVD.
Chris Manley’s cinematography saves the film from being worse, making
the content troubles more frustrating.
The sound is available in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo with Pro Logic
surrounds and a 5.1 AC-3 mix that is a bit better. Unfortunately, the sound effects are often
overdone and the music selection is often obnoxious, so you lose either way,
meaning DTS would have made no difference here.
The
extras include commentary by Anderson on the film, a Making of program, alternate/extended
scenes and missing scenes that added nothing to the film, plus trailers to
other Lion’s Gate/Artisan titles, a gag reel and even costume concepts. All this unfortunately expands the idea of
the film not having a direction. The thing
that this film most defines is a boutique approach to independent filmmaking
that has been killing the independent voice of filmmakers. This is the second film reviewed on this site
with the same title that did not work, as if the title is making a post-Noir
statement of some sort. The 2003 Big Empty thus also lives up to its
name.
- Nicholas Sheffo
