New York City Serenade (2008/Anchor Bay DVD)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Feature: D

 

 

Some projects seem so desperate and ego-driven that it is obvious, but when it is something as shockingly bad as Frank Whaley’s redundant New York City Serenade (2008), you wonder how an actor so savvy could land up behind the cameras doing such junk.  Then all you have to do is look and see Freddie Prinze Jr. is in it and you know the project is doomed to failure.  But did it have to be this bad?

 

He and Chris Klein play best friends who are not doing much with their lives, which are at a dead end, even though Prinze is about to get married.  They even get together and before you know it, it is like they (and we) are in high school.  The script by Whaley thinks it is being sentimental in a smart way, but Prinze and Klein are so unconvincingly juvenile that they are embarrassing in the worst possible way.  I expect this from Prinze, but Klein could do better as a member of a band and his facial hair is so silly, I thought he might break out into a Tony Orlando & Dawn medley.  That would have been an improvement from what we get here.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is fuzzy throughout and for a new production has way more motion blur than it should.  Compositions are awkward and little is memorable about its look.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is not that good, yet is the default highlight of the disc and at some points is louder, just too loud and more ill-mixed than usual.  Extras include an audio commentary by Whaley and co-stars Ben Schwartz, Alexander Chaplin & Heather Bucha (guess Prinze was too busy staring at himself in the mirror and/or dodging a Razzie) and a behind the scenes featurette.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo