Hot Picks
|
|
|
Girlfriend's Day
USA 2017
produced by M. Elizabeth Hughes, Bob Odenkirk, Marc Provissiero, Ian Bricke (executive), Chris Kilvington (executive) for Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment/Netflix
directed by Michael Paul Stephenson
starring Bob Odenkirk, Amber Tamblyn, Stacy Keach, Alex Karpovsky, Kevin O'Grady, Rich Sommer, Larry Fessenden, Natasha Lyonne, Andy Richter, June Diane Raphael, Stephanie Courtney, Echo Kellum, Nate Mooney, Radek Lord, Tucker Smallwood, David Sullivan, Toby Huss, Steven Michael Quezada, Jason Garcia jr, Derek Waters, Grady Lee Richmond, Ed Begley jr, Lyric Lewis, Lauren Lapkus, Brett Paesel, Courtney Fansler, Mason Trueblood, Hannah Nordberg, Lauren Sanchez, Julia Cho, Julyza Commodore, James W. Hughes, David Lynch (voice)
written by Eric Hoffman, Bob Odenkirk, Philip Zlotorynski, music by Bobby Tahouri
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
In a world where greeting card writing reigns surpreme, Ray (Bob
Odenkirk) was once at the top of the game, writing the best romantic cards
ever. But his talent has long eroded, mainly thanks to his wife not only
leaving him but of all things leaving him for a card illustrator. So
eventually, Ray gets the boot, and it's not long before he hits rock
bottom - when of all people his former boss Styvesan (Alex Karpovsky) asks
him to write a greeting card, but specifically for a
"girlfriend", for good money. A few days later Ray finds out
why, as the city council has decided to create "Girlfriend's
Day" and is giving out a high reward for the person who writes the
best greeting card for the day - provided he or she does not presently
work in the business. So apparently Styvesan and the big boss of the
greeting card company Gundy (Stacy Keach) want to get their share of his
expected success, also so the company can beat their rival to the punch. Ray
breaks into his former office to retrieve his stuff that's to help him
write the card, but stumbles over the dead body of a colleague of his,
Taft (Larry Fessenden), who rivaled him in talent. And then he's knocked
out and finds himself in Detective Miller's (Kevin O'Grady) apartment, who
pretty much threatens him to take him in for the murder of Taft, but it
soon becomes clear he does his best to not get Ray involved with the
murder, and Taft's body is later found floating in the river and ruled a
suicide, too - so someone's hushing things up for sure. On the bright
side, Ray finds new love with Jill (Amber Tamblyn), of all things a
greeting card store employee, and if everything else in his life fails,
their relationship's going great, so great in fact that Ray finds
inspiration and writes the best girlfriend greeting card ever - to then
find out that both Jill and Detective Miller were only employed by Gundy
to drive Ray to hit a new high in card writing. But discovering this, Ray
realizes he's not the pawn Gundy has taken him for but can be master of
the game ... Now if you're a fan of Bob Odenkirk as an actor,
this movie's for you, as his performance is flawless, and he gets to play
one of these conflicted characters he's become so good at playing. That
said, the film as a whole ... is by no means bad, just lacking. Basically
the whole thing's chock-full with attempts at satire but then plays it
straight throughout, choosing a thriller narrative over something that
could have been really wild and scathing, and probably also offensive and
wickedly funny. As it is, the film works ok, and it sure has its great
moments, it just seems likea missed opportunity.
|
|
|