`The Woman Chaser' stars Patrick Warburton (best known as Puddy on `Seinfeld' and soon to be known as The Tick) as Richard Hudson, a womanizing, egomaniacal used-car salesman who realizes one day that his life is empty. Nothing but meaningless affairs and deals with people he deems to be mindless sheep. He has a burning desire to create, but realizes that he lacks any of the artistic skills necessary to reach that achievement
until he decides to make a movie. `I can do that,' he thinks to himself in a voice of grim self-confidence. He comes up with a title
'The Man Who Got Away'
and a plot. The scene where he pitches the idea to his stepfather (Paul Malevich), a washed-up film producer whose contacts Richard needs to bring his film to life, is worth the price of admission alone. Without giving too much away, the stepfather's contacts pay off and the film goes into production. What follows is another behind-the-scenes look at the studio system, although this one plays much closer to `Barton Fink' than to something like `The Player.' The final scene is a fun and quirky twist-ending that, while not trying to out-`Sixth Sense' anybody, brings the film's hilarious narrative to a natural conclusion.
With enough exposure, this film will help Warburton shed the Puddy image that everybody knows him for. His performance as Richard is an excellent piece of work, combining hard-boiled tough-guy dialogue with deadpan humor and the occasional bombastic outburst that helps shed light on the depths of Richard's obsession with his project. He's nicely supported by a cast of mostly unknowns, all of whom bring strong work to the table.
The real star of this picture though, in my opinion, is director Robinson Devor, working from a pulp novel by Charles Willeford. In a time when a critic from the Peoria Times-Gazette can see something like `The Watcher' and label it film noir, Devor expertly recreates the feel and the mood of the noir films of the fifties and sixties (it doesn't hurt that the film is set in the sixties), at the same time bringing in a black, perverse sense of comedy that could only be done in a film today. `The Woman Chaser' also contains the best use of black-and-white film (which also supports the noir elements) since `Ed Wood.' The quirky feel of the story and performances are supported by the latin jazz soundtrack, containing such luminaries as Les Baxter, Martin Denny, Dave Brubeck, Yma Sumac and the great, Tito Puente. When all is said and done, all of these elements combined to make this one of the better movie-going experiences I've had in recent memory.
So, in closing, if you want to watch an artistic and entertaining piece of work, go see `The Woman Chaser.' You won't be disappointed.
With enough exposure, this film will help Warburton shed the Puddy image that everybody knows him for. His performance as Richard is an excellent piece of work, combining hard-boiled tough-guy dialogue with deadpan humor and the occasional bombastic outburst that helps shed light on the depths of Richard's obsession with his project. He's nicely supported by a cast of mostly unknowns, all of whom bring strong work to the table.
The real star of this picture though, in my opinion, is director Robinson Devor, working from a pulp novel by Charles Willeford. In a time when a critic from the Peoria Times-Gazette can see something like `The Watcher' and label it film noir, Devor expertly recreates the feel and the mood of the noir films of the fifties and sixties (it doesn't hurt that the film is set in the sixties), at the same time bringing in a black, perverse sense of comedy that could only be done in a film today. `The Woman Chaser' also contains the best use of black-and-white film (which also supports the noir elements) since `Ed Wood.' The quirky feel of the story and performances are supported by the latin jazz soundtrack, containing such luminaries as Les Baxter, Martin Denny, Dave Brubeck, Yma Sumac and the great, Tito Puente. When all is said and done, all of these elements combined to make this one of the better movie-going experiences I've had in recent memory.
So, in closing, if you want to watch an artistic and entertaining piece of work, go see `The Woman Chaser.' You won't be disappointed.