Life Without Dick

This was one of the worst films that I've seen in ages! It doesn't know what its mood and genre is. It's about as funny as a random bus/subway conversation! Just look at the picture on the front of the video - Sarah J.P. looks like she's saying, `What the f__k am I doing in this piece of crap. She should have got her husband (a better actor, or, better at picking scripts at least) read the script again.

This movie was much more than I expected--quirky and clever, stupid yet hysterical. Of course it was a stupid movie--I think that was what was intended. If you saw this movie and hated it, all I can say is that perhaps your expecations were too high or (more likely), you simply didn't get it. Personally, I laughed my a** off.

The painter Colleen Gibson (Sarah Jessica Parker) shoots and kills her boy-friend Dick Rasmusson (Johnny Knoxville) by accident. He was a private eye and was cheating Colleen with a police woman. In the day before, Dick had a minor car accident with Daniel Gallagher (Harry Connick Jr.). Daniel presented himself as a marchand, but indeed he is an Irish Mafia hit-man, assigned to kill Dick. However, he does not have courage enough for killing people. Daniel wanted to be a singer, but he has had some kind of mental block due to his former girlfriend Mary (Claudia Schiffer). Collen and Daniel start dating each other, and helping each other to resolve their problems. This movie could be and excellent black humor comedy. However, it does not work well and is very irregular. The beginning is very funny, along the story are some good jokes (for example, `Are you a Republican Senator?', or the dialogs of the two agents trying to clarify the death of Pee Wee and even the use of flashbacks to explain what happened), but the predictable and conventional end is forbidden for diabetics. Unfortunately, it is nothing but a good idea completely wasted. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): `Assassinato por Acidente' (`Murderer by Accident')

Life Without Dick is a fast moving comedy that has everything, a good looking cast, funny police officers, as well the Irish Mafia. I found this movie to be entertaining, sure it's not of Oscar quality, but it's still a movie that tells a story that eventually everyone becomes tied together in a clever way. If you like Sarah Jessica Parker you'll like this movie, and if you like If Lucy Fell, you will like this movie

There's something there, but it didn't work out. It's clearly supposed to be some kind of screwball black comedy, but the comedy isn't screwball enough or black enough, so it just comes off as a romcom that doesn't quite grasp how fucked up it is. Both Harry Connick Jr and Sarah Jessica Parker are terrible in it, no charisma or chemistry, and every single supporting character is more appealing to watch than either of them. The total lack of spark in the alleged romance just makes it uncomfortable when they act cute over the corpses of their victims. It should be comic, but they and their relationship are lifeless and that makes it creepy. The titular Dick is meant to be so unsympathetic that you're okay with the light-hearted shenanigans surrounding his murder, but he was still more engaging than our 'heroes' and the morbid absurdity which depends on us utterly hating him to become dark whimsy remains grim and upsetting.

Craig Ferguson has his moments of being quite funny, as does David Koechner, but their scenes working well doesn't pull the film up from its downward spiral. The leads are just ill-chosen or poorly directed or both. Their performances are straight bad and their characters have no charm. Sarah Jessica Parker as a bubbly blond with a secret knack for crime is supposed to be a funny dichotomy, but her baby voice and air headedness are just grating.

Harry Connick can't act and casting him as a heartthrob is also possibly just a bridge too far under any circumstances considering he looks like a Simpsons character. At their fucked up meet cute she differentiates him as 'the handsome one' and yeeesh. That's as cruel as the plot. The fact that he's standing next to Johnny Knoxville (far too good-looking and likeable for this role) at the time doesn't help. Casting Knoxville as the heel in general didn't work. As we find out the original motive to kill Dick was a misunderstanding, despite the film's constant reassurance that he's definitely still a complete asshole, his naturally endearing screen presence and the heroine's unhinged behaviour combine to make him just enough of a victim that the whole conceit of the film falls apart.

Anyway, the consistent awkwardness leads me to believe the biggest single problem with this is the director. It could have been mediocre rather than bad with the exact same script.