SAY IT ISN'T SO! / (2001) * (out of four)
Spoilers Here we have the most uncomfortable movie of the new year, and it comes in the form of a comedy even the Farrelly brothers didn't brother to write or direct, but instead produce so the filmmakers could put the famous tagline on the posters: "From the Guys who brought you 'There's Something About Many.'" That is getting old, and the Farrelly brothers are beginning to lose their credibility. Just look at "Outside Providence," and "Me, Myself, & Irene." They are losing their outrageously funny sense of humor. Here, there is plenty of offensive material, crude humor, gross out sight gags and disgusting subjects, but the real impulse and wit are gone. This movie basically has one joke repeated continuously.and the original joke isn't even all that funny.
"Say It Isn't So!" ponders upon the question of what if you fell in love with a beautiful woman only to find out, after wild sex and popping the big question, that she is actually your long lost sister? The film's main character, Gilly Noble, played by Chris Klein from "Here on Earth," which, in a sense, was even worse than this picture, must deal with this vary situation, and things get even more complicated when (spoiler) he finds out his love is not really his sibling after all!
I am getting ahead of myself here. Lets start at the very beginning, when Gilly, an underpaid dog catcher, meets an attractive but untalented hair stylist named Jo Wingfield (Heather Graham from "Bowfinger"). He has no parents, but is frantically searching for them as he has hired a spy to search for his birth mother. She has parents, but her father (Richard Jenkins) is terminally ill and communicates through an electronic voice amplifier and despises almost everyone he comes in which he contacts, and her mother (Sally Field) is a bitter, scheming, money-hungry con woman who hides from Gilly that Jo is not his sister, so that the heroine can marry a popular millionaire.
The film's individual scenes feel awkward and uneasy, as if the filmmakers are unsure of what they are doing and if they are doing it right. It does not appear that they knew what they were doing, and even if they did, they do almost everything wrong, anyway. Dialogue is unconfident, cringe-inducing, and often down right stupid-making for a movie that is both boring and pointless. The actual sense of humor consists of typical Farrelly gestures: physical injury, sexually frank undertones and remarks, victimized animals, and political incorrectness. But for the most part this movie confuses public humiliation with embarrassment and that becomes painfully irritating. After a while, the sexual content losses what little shock value it had, and become just a constant array of sexual references and foul comments.
I would really like to know if the filmmakers instructed Heather Graham and Chris Klein to exploit their worst possible acting ability because they do not even have the acting quality of middle school kids in a Friday night, two for a dollar, 30-minute presentation. They are both capable of a whole lot more, and they seem to confuse the idea that in order to be successful in a comedy, you need not to act silly, but act seriously in order for a joke to be played upon them. As a result of the performance miscalculations, the film's many side characters upstage the two main characters, thus we never really care about either one of them.
The film's director is J.B. Rogers, who used to go by James B. Rogers, until now, that is. Maybe he wanted to go by a different name so that this film will not haunt his reputation for long. The writers are novices Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow. Gaulke has some experience with Saturday Night Live (the combined letters SNL are almost always a death sentence to a movie, "Say It Isn't So!," is no exception), and Swallow has nothing to his writing credits until now. I have good news for both of these screenwriters: their careers can only go uphill from here!
Spoilers Here we have the most uncomfortable movie of the new year, and it comes in the form of a comedy even the Farrelly brothers didn't brother to write or direct, but instead produce so the filmmakers could put the famous tagline on the posters: "From the Guys who brought you 'There's Something About Many.'" That is getting old, and the Farrelly brothers are beginning to lose their credibility. Just look at "Outside Providence," and "Me, Myself, & Irene." They are losing their outrageously funny sense of humor. Here, there is plenty of offensive material, crude humor, gross out sight gags and disgusting subjects, but the real impulse and wit are gone. This movie basically has one joke repeated continuously.and the original joke isn't even all that funny.
"Say It Isn't So!" ponders upon the question of what if you fell in love with a beautiful woman only to find out, after wild sex and popping the big question, that she is actually your long lost sister? The film's main character, Gilly Noble, played by Chris Klein from "Here on Earth," which, in a sense, was even worse than this picture, must deal with this vary situation, and things get even more complicated when (spoiler) he finds out his love is not really his sibling after all!
I am getting ahead of myself here. Lets start at the very beginning, when Gilly, an underpaid dog catcher, meets an attractive but untalented hair stylist named Jo Wingfield (Heather Graham from "Bowfinger"). He has no parents, but is frantically searching for them as he has hired a spy to search for his birth mother. She has parents, but her father (Richard Jenkins) is terminally ill and communicates through an electronic voice amplifier and despises almost everyone he comes in which he contacts, and her mother (Sally Field) is a bitter, scheming, money-hungry con woman who hides from Gilly that Jo is not his sister, so that the heroine can marry a popular millionaire.
The film's individual scenes feel awkward and uneasy, as if the filmmakers are unsure of what they are doing and if they are doing it right. It does not appear that they knew what they were doing, and even if they did, they do almost everything wrong, anyway. Dialogue is unconfident, cringe-inducing, and often down right stupid-making for a movie that is both boring and pointless. The actual sense of humor consists of typical Farrelly gestures: physical injury, sexually frank undertones and remarks, victimized animals, and political incorrectness. But for the most part this movie confuses public humiliation with embarrassment and that becomes painfully irritating. After a while, the sexual content losses what little shock value it had, and become just a constant array of sexual references and foul comments.
I would really like to know if the filmmakers instructed Heather Graham and Chris Klein to exploit their worst possible acting ability because they do not even have the acting quality of middle school kids in a Friday night, two for a dollar, 30-minute presentation. They are both capable of a whole lot more, and they seem to confuse the idea that in order to be successful in a comedy, you need not to act silly, but act seriously in order for a joke to be played upon them. As a result of the performance miscalculations, the film's many side characters upstage the two main characters, thus we never really care about either one of them.
The film's director is J.B. Rogers, who used to go by James B. Rogers, until now, that is. Maybe he wanted to go by a different name so that this film will not haunt his reputation for long. The writers are novices Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow. Gaulke has some experience with Saturday Night Live (the combined letters SNL are almost always a death sentence to a movie, "Say It Isn't So!," is no exception), and Swallow has nothing to his writing credits until now. I have good news for both of these screenwriters: their careers can only go uphill from here!