Just another piece of evidence that director Garry Marshall was best at doing romantic comedies over anything else. I was really looking forward to watching this film because I loved Marshall's "Pretty Woman", and I mean no disrespect to him especially with his recent passing but I have always felt his sister Penny is a much better filmmaker and this film is certainly proof of that. There are definitely some funny moments and the film starts off great, then goes totally flat and one-dimensional after the main focus of the plot is established. The problem here isn't the performances. Tom Hanks and Jackie Glaeason are both wonderful and do keep the movie at least watchable. It was also nice to see Eva Marie Saint (Hitchcock's "North by Northwest") in one of her later roles, in spite of being given very little to do, and there's also some good music, particularly the opening song by Christopher Cross. Hector Elizando a Garry Marshall regular also gives a good supporting performance. But once the story is set in motion and the problem between Gleason and Saint as Hanks' parents is established, the film becomes a slow, predictable and clichéd outing. It then tries to balance comedy with drama, and eventually just focuses more on being a drama, especially towards the end, but the predictability and slow- pacing of it all does the movie no justice, and it begins to slip into a point of desperation to be a feel-good, moving film. The stars can't be faulted. They still give great performances. Marshall can't be faulted. Even though he wasn't as strong a director as his sister he was still a decent one at the least. The problem lies solely with the story. This is a story with very little to offer in the way of genuine entertainment. We have seen this story done many times before and certainly since, and better at that. That's why the movie eventually becomes painfully slow, and predictable long before it is over and were it not for Hanks, Gleason Saint and Elizando's strong performances, the movie would indeed be unwatchable. Because of the strong performances it is mediocre at best and forgettable at worst. It would have been great to see all these stars and the director do a movie with a more engaging story. It almost seems like Marshall knew there was only so much he could do here, and depended on his actors to carry the weight. The result is an uneven movie, that really becomes more frustrating as it goes along and you wish it would just end already well before the two hour mark. Fortunately Marshall redeemed himself with romantic comedies like "Overboard" and "Pretty Woman", both undeniably better films suited for his directing style. It would only be two years later where Hanks would start to have that perfect balance between comedy and drama in "Big" interestingly enough directed by Garry's sister Penny. This might be a must see for die-hard fans of Gleason, whose final film performance this was as he died the following year. For everyone else though this is an uninteresting, non-original story and Hanks and Marshall proved later in their careers they were capable of making much better movies. On a side note, one other merit was seeing Dan Castalenetta (the voice of Homer Simpson), in a brief role as one of Hanks' advertising colleagues. Overall though the few merits of this movie don't make up for it's many flaws, which is a shame because the stars and director definitely deserved better, especially Gleason for a final film role.
Review of Nothing in Common
