Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You should join in! All you have to do is pick three movies that fit the week's theme and write a bit about them - it's fun!
This week on Thursday Movie Picks, we have been assigned movies that happen to be remakes of a film from a different language. Hollywood does this a lot, and usually NOT for the better. These happen to be some of the worst.
Do not - I repeat - DO NOT watch these movies. But DO seek out the originals!
Dinner for Schmucks (Jay Roach, 2010) Crass, grating, and unfunny in the worst way, despite the handsomely talented Paul Rudd and Steve Carell. Screenwriters David Guion and Michael Handelman have taken Francis Veber's classic French farce Le diner de cons, removed its heart, and replaced it with gags galore. The problem is, only about half of them are funny on their own, and the rest rely on the actors, who all turn in their most insipid, obnoxious performances. A quick synopsis: The titular dinner is one held by businessmen, who bring idiotic "friends" along in a sick game of one-upsmanship. While the original French film was smart enough (while still providing tremendously funny slapstick) to have you actually switching allegiances between the two main characters, this version is just nasty through and through.
Last Man Standing (Walter Hill, 1996) Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo is one of the greatest films ever made, with a tremendous lead performance from The Man himself, Toshiro Mifune. The first remake of it, Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars also had a killer lead performance, from Clint Eastwood. Walter Hill's version, however, has a mumbling Bruce Willis in one of his least charismatic performances. Unfortunately, that performance is pretty much of a piece with the rest of the film, which is mostly dull and oppressive. Who'da thunk so many shootouts could feel so listless?
The Vanishing (George Sluizer, 1993) Exhibit A for how Hollywood can ruin even a director adapting his own great film in English. George Sluizer's Spoorloos is a masterpiece, taking a simple premise (one half of a couple vanishes from a public place, the other half becomes obsessed with trying to find out what happened) and teasing out incredible tension and complex philosophical questions in equal amounts. But the Hollywood version (tellingly written by an American as opposed to the director/writer of the original) is a rote thriller, losing nearly everything in translation. But the film's biggest sin is replacing the original's ending (one of the greatest of all time) with a big, fat Hollywood ending, rendering the film completely toothless.
