NoFace for Film

Title: The Producers
Year: 2005
Director: Susan Stroman
Starring Cast: Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman
Rated: PG-13

NoFace for Film rating: 2.5 out of 7

For years I had wanted to watch The Producers on stage. I had heard such great reviews about it, and became even more interested when I learned that it had won so many Tony Awards. I was thrilled when I then heard that a movie was made out of it, and starring the original lead actors. Imagine then my extreme disappointment when I finally rented it.

First off, let me be clear in that this is the second Producers movie. Actually, the 2005 movie is based on the musical, which was based on the 1968 comedy of the same name. Max Bialystock (Lane) is a washed-up Broadway musical producer who earns a living partly by romancing elderly ladies. Accountant Leo Bloom (Broderick) is uptight and neurotic, dissolving into panic attacks whenever his favorite hankerchief is taken from him.

When Leo looks over Max’s books, he inadvertently inspires him to put on the worst show on Broadway to earn $2 million. After Max convinces Leo to be his business partner, the two proceed to hunt for the ingredients required of a flop. This includes buying the rights to the “worst play even written” and hiring the “worst director in the world”. Although I won’t give anything away, I think it’s pretty predictable on what happens to their little scheme.

The Producers was a monumental flop on the box office, and frankly, I’m not surprised one bit. As I mentioned, I was really disappointed, especially in the acting. I’m amazed that Broderick earned a Tony nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical, because he was atrocious. I get that Leo is supposed to be a neurotic freak, but Broderick overacted the hell out of it. This guy played freakin’ Ferris Bueller, and he acts like a complete idiot in the movie! Since this is pretty much an adaptation of the stage musical, I’ll assume that Broderick portrayed Leo in the same manner onstage. Am I missing something here? Lane as Bialystock was almost as bad, though he redeems himself in a cool musical recap of the entire story near the end.

But perhaps that’s it. Maybe it’s because it WAS an extremely faithful adaptation of the musical. Since it’s hard for the audience in the further seats to see the actors’ faces, the actors oftentimes have to overact a little to get emotions across. Perhaps Broderick was so used to playing this character on stage that he forgot he was doing a movie, where every action and gesture he did was magnified on the big screen by a hundred percent. But this can’t be it either, since so many other musicals have transistioned successfully to the big screen.

Thurman was gorgeous (I loved her white dress!) as Ulla, but I feel that she was casted only because she was a big name star. Why cast someone as a Swedish person when she could barely hold on to that accent? Why not cast a real Swedish woman, or better yet, the actress who plays Ulla onstage?

Another thing I didn’t like was that some of the comedic material is dated -one big example were the gay jokes. Oh wow, this guy is dressed up as a woman and look, these other guys are dressed as the Village People. The one lesbian in this gay bunch is very manly looking, with short hair and wearing a flannel shirt. Wow, I’ve never seen these gay stereotypes before used for comedic purposes. I suppose this was funny in the 1968 version (though I don’t think that the Village People were around yet), but nowadays, it just comes across as overdone.

I also thought that most of the songs were pretty boring. I don’t remember any of them except for “Springtime for Hitler”. The musical numbers were also so-so.

As I mentioned earlier, countless musicals have been successfully adapted into movies. Many are now timeless classics (My Fair Lady, The King and I, West Side Story, South Pacific, Grease, etc.) Hell, The Phantom of the Opera movie was terrific, in spite of it being directed by that hack Joel Schumacher. So I can’t figure out for the life of me why The Producers movie was so bad. You have the same lead actors, the same producer (Mel Brooks), the same story, the same musical numbers, and the same jokes. The only thing I can think of (and I may get a lot of flack for this by fans) is that the musical itself is bad.

I’m now glad that I only spent $4 renting this movie rather than spending say, $75 by watching it live.

Technorati Tags: Mel Brooks, TheProducers, Max Bialystock, Leo Bloom, Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, Springtime for Hitler