Not since "A Clockwork Orange" used "Singing in the Rain" during a disturbing attack scene and "Face/Off" played "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in the middle of a massive gun battle has a movie taken some beloved music, thrown it into a film completely inappropriate for its theme, and most likely enraged the original song's/movie's diehard fans. Of course we're talking about selections from "The Sound of Music" that appear in the release of the "noirish," black comedy genre, "Goodbye Lover."
That doesn't mean we're complaining since the music -- including memorable favorites such as "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," "My Favorite Things" and "So Long, Farewell" -- actually helps accentuate the film's mood and overall wacky atmosphere, making for some funny moments.
A more leisurely paced, less outrageous and somewhat more user friendly film than 1998's misguided "Very Bad Things," this picture -- like most every other title falling into that genre -- will only appeal to a certain segment of the mainstream viewing audience.
Like any blackened dish served in a restaurant, this offering clearly isn't palatable to all appetites, and if not prepared just right, will either end up leaving a bitter aftertaste or appear too bland to succeed. While not a great black comedy -- let alone an overall film -- this one fortunately has just the right "bad" taste to get the job done and comes off as a moderately entertaining flick (as long as you can tolerate the subject matter).
Regardless of how one wishes to attempt labeling the film, it's simply a sexy, black comedy thriller filled with the requisite and purposefully despicable characters whose backstabbing and double and triple crossing will keep you guessing how it will end throughout its near two-hour runtime.
The script, courtesy of screenwriters Ron Peer (his first) and Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow (collaborators on "Toy Story" and "Money Talks"), while not quite as harried as many similar entries in the genre, keeps things moving simply through the nonstop double crossing and changing of allegiances. As such, the film often feels a bit too artificially constructed -- as if the trio of writers needed to fulfill a preset quota of twists -- but then again, films of this sort aren't supposed to be based in reality, so some leeway is granted.
That writing trio and director Roland Joffé, significantly departing from his previous works such as "The Killing Fields" and "The Mission," also include some "Ally McBeal" type moments where what we think is shocking reality turns out only to be a character's violent fantasy.
While that's often a fun storytelling device to employ and it certainly tweaks the viewer by making such moments mini-twists in their own right, several problems relate to their use. First, such scenes -- also found in 1998’s "Living Out Loud" and popularized long ago in those Warner Bros. cartoons featuring a daydreaming young schoolboy -- most often represent the unrepressed id.
As such, they usually appear as fantasies of characters who normally wouldn't live-out such violent acts. Since the characters here already do the unspeakable, the "fun" aspect of such imagined scenes is significantly lessened.
Had Joffé and his writing team decided to litter the production with such moments -- thus ensuring that the viewer would never know what was real or not -- the effect might have been quite a hoot. Unfortunately, they elected to include only two such moments that only further serve to perpetuate the script's manipulative and somewhat artificial feel.
For what's expected and/or asked of them, the cast and their performances are good. Patricia Arquette ("The Hi-Lo Country," "True Romance") obviously had a lot of fun in her campy role and is particularly effective playing her spin on the traditional femme fatale, while Don Johnson ("Tin Cup," TV's "Nash Bridges") delivers a good take as the smarmy PR exec. Less noteworthy, but still decent in their roles are Dermot Mulroney ("My Best Friend's Wedding") and Mary- Louise Parker ("Fried Green Tomatoes").
One of the more enjoyable performances comes from Ellen DeGeneres ("Mr. Wrong," TV's "Ellen") as the stereotypically cynical police detective. While she doesn't stray too far from other characters she's played in the past (with her casually cynical, smart-aleck comebacks), she's still rather enjoyable in the role and her exchanges with her straight-laced partner, perfectly played by
Ray McKinnon, generate most of the film's laughs.
Even so and for the most part, the film doesn't deliver enough humor and is perhaps a bit too relaxed in its storytelling style. While it's moderately entertaining and will certainly hold your interest throughout, it doesn't always fire on all of its needed or appropriate cylinders to make this a noteworthy achievement for its genre.
As far as the disc's technical merits go, the visuals are decent but not up to the quality standards set forth by today’s best looking discs, while the audio is quite good for what’s expected of it. Supplemental materials aren’t particularly noteworthy, however.
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