I'm not sorry this didn't turn out to be the comedy it was billed to be. Instead, it was a tale of three bird watching fanatics who came to understand each other and themselves over the span of a competition known in birding circles as The Big Year. I'd never heard of it, but apparently there is such a thing. As a kid I enjoyed spotting different kinds of birds and was always thrilled to see one I hadn't come across before. I thought it was the coolest thing to have a pair of rose breasted grosbeaks hang out in my back yard, the only place I ever saw that species. Robins, there were plenty of robins. I'm having a bird watching merit badge flashback as I write this.
What made the picture for me was when Owen Wilson's character showed integrity by refusing to count some bird or other when the sound it made could have been done by one of the competitors trying to spot one. Up till then, Kenny Bostick was being positioned as the cutthroat birder who'd do anything to insure victory. The guy actually WAS kind of a creep to his wife (Rosamund Pike) when you come right down to it, but he had honor among competitors, even though he used many subtle influences to throw them off track. In business it's called strategy, and Kenny was a master strategist.
With Steve Martin and Jack Black as part of the headline cast, I guess you'd expect a veritable laugh fest, but the film makers took this in a different direction. Stu Preissler (Martin) was a business executive ready to call it a career and devote more time to his family, while Brad Harris (Black) was a non-achiever who saw the Big Year as a chance to finally prove his worth at something. Each in their own way fulfill a personal goal even if they missed out on first place in the birding competition.
The film wouldn't have been complete if it hadn't referenced a couple of obvious targets. The bird theme absolutely called for a Hitchcockian mention as a tribute to that 1963 picture, while Jack Black's ring-tone was one of the great novelty songs of the Sixties that I could never get enough of as a kid. The bird is the word you know.
What made the picture for me was when Owen Wilson's character showed integrity by refusing to count some bird or other when the sound it made could have been done by one of the competitors trying to spot one. Up till then, Kenny Bostick was being positioned as the cutthroat birder who'd do anything to insure victory. The guy actually WAS kind of a creep to his wife (Rosamund Pike) when you come right down to it, but he had honor among competitors, even though he used many subtle influences to throw them off track. In business it's called strategy, and Kenny was a master strategist.
With Steve Martin and Jack Black as part of the headline cast, I guess you'd expect a veritable laugh fest, but the film makers took this in a different direction. Stu Preissler (Martin) was a business executive ready to call it a career and devote more time to his family, while Brad Harris (Black) was a non-achiever who saw the Big Year as a chance to finally prove his worth at something. Each in their own way fulfill a personal goal even if they missed out on first place in the birding competition.
The film wouldn't have been complete if it hadn't referenced a couple of obvious targets. The bird theme absolutely called for a Hitchcockian mention as a tribute to that 1963 picture, while Jack Black's ring-tone was one of the great novelty songs of the Sixties that I could never get enough of as a kid. The bird is the word you know.