"Liv-in' it up" - a review by minoYou know, before I saw One Night at McCool's, I never once thought that Liv Tyler was particularly good-looking. For all the hype she gets as a stunningly gorgeous sex-bomb, I never thought of her as much chop at all. You know what? I was wrong. All it takes is to put some red hair on her, and yowza — she really is a stunner. Red hair really suits her. Especially when she's doing the hottest ‘bikini car-wash’ scene this side of Bring It On (2000)…
What? I'm supposed to be talking about the movie? Oh well, if I must.
One Night at McCool's is a fairly enjoyable — well, I don't know what to call it, because it doesn't really fit very neatly into any particular categories. It's a kind of ‘sexy thriller/comedy’, if that makes sense: the movie it most strongly reminded me of was Wild Things (1998) (also starring Matt Dillon, funnily enough), so think Wild Things, but a bit funnier, a little less ‘twisty’. In fact, McCool's reminded me of several movies, for a variety of reasons: Wild Things, Very Bad Things (1998), and even Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) for some reason — I think it was the laid-back vaguely ‘Southern’ feel of the whole thing.
Anyway, the plot itself (I'll get there eventually): Tyler is Jewel, a bombshell sex-kitten who can't walk into someone's life without changing it (assuming they're a straight male, that is). When bartender Randy (Dillon) saves her bacon (not Kevin Bacon, though he was in Wild Things too) from an attempted rape, she insinuates herself into his life — at first innocently, then in a more and more twisted and sinister fashion. Needless to say, things rapidly start going pear-shaped for Randy, his brother Carl (the surprisingly good Paul Reiser), and everyone else involved. I can't say too much more without giving it away, but suffice it to say it's quite dark, quite sexy, and quite funny.
The story is a clever one, partially due to the way it's told. Most of the movie is flashback-style, from multiple angles — Dillon recounting his story to a suspicious-looking crim (Michael Douglas), Carl telling his psychiatrist, and grizzled cop John Goodman confessing to his priest. While this could have proven very annoying (particularly some of the Dillon-Douglas banter, which interrupts the flow of the story too many times for no real reason), it actually works quite well. There are subtle differences in each person's recounting of the same scene, which could prove gimmicky, but isn't: the differences are subtle enough that you won't even notice most of them if you're not paying attention, and many of them are very funny in themselves.
The movie loses much of its cleverness as it progresses beyond the half-way point, alas: it gets less ‘black’ and instead just devolves into slapstick, though it's quite well-done and not always unwelcome. I mean, the shootout scene it the end is quite ridiculous, but when you have a totally-over-the-top shootout (oh, add The Big Hit (1998) to that ‘movies this reminds me of’ list…) set to the Village People's YMCA, how the hell can you complain?
If you can get over Liv Tyler's astoundingly annoying accent, you may well find an enjoyable little movie. It won't be for all tastes (as with all the movies I've mentioned), but if you like them, I think you'll find McCool's to be entertaining enough.
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Rating given: 10
A comment from Will on Wed 29 Jun 2005 15:05 #