A sweeping family adventure, My Penguin Friend is a triumphant tale of friendship between a lonely father and the little lost penguin DinDim who recharges his spirit and heals his family with an unshakable, ocean-crossing loyalty.
Starring Jean Reno and Adriana Barraza, check out the sweet trailer now.
Humble fisherman João (Jean Reno) has turned away from the world in the wake of tragedy. But when he discovers a penguin drifting alone in the ocean, drenched in oil from a spill, his first instinct is to help. To his wife’s (Oscar nominee Adriana Barraza) dismay, he not only rescues the sea creature, but takes the flightless bird under his wing. For the first time in years João starts to feel joy, even if he cannot fathom just how unbreakable a bond is being formed. When the penguin suddenly disappears back into the immense wilds of the ocean, João believes it is impossible that he will ever see his friend again. But thousands of miles away, the penguin is caught in misadventures of his own, determined to use his unique GPS-like powers to find his way back to the place he now considers home.
Based on an emotional true story that riveted the world and filmed on the spectacular coasts of Brazil and Argentina, My Penguin Friend is a tale that traverses the magic of the ocean, the beauty of nature, and the transformative power of love.
The score is from composer Fernando Velázquez (A Monster Calls, The Impossible, Mama, Devil, The Orphanage).
Directed by David Schurmann and written by Paulina Lagudi & Kristen Lazarian, Roadside Attractions will release MY PENGUIN FRIEND only in theaters on August 16th, 2024.
After making a name for himself in his native France, particularly with his collaborations with action director Luc Besson, actor Jean Reno crossed the Atlantic to become a highly-sought character performer in big budget Hollywood fare. Though he broke the ice with American audiences with the cult classic LE FEMME NIKITA (1991), Reno made his greatest impression on U.S. shores playing a reluctant hit man training a young girl (Natalie Portman) in the strangely heartwarming thriller THE PRFESSIONAL (1994). Ever since, Reno made his mark playing coolly ambiguous and frighteningly cunning characters who more often than not reveal themselves to be all-too-human. Reno was perhaps most memorable in action thrillers like RONIN (1998) and THE DA VINCI CODE (2006). Despite not possessing a marquee name,
Jean Reno with Robert DeNiro in RONIN
Reno has proved himself to be an invaluable character performer capable of switching from foreign films to Hollywood features with ease.
Jean Reno can be seen in the new action-thriller THE DOORMAN co-starring Ruby Rose. She plays a former Marine turned doorman at a luxury New York City high-rise who must outsmart and battle a group of art thieves and their ruthless leader (Jean Reno) — while struggling to protect her sister’s family. THE DOORMAN premiers exclusively On Demand and Digital October 9, and on Blu-ray and DVD October 13 from Lionsgate.
Actor Jean Reno took the time to talk about THE DOORMAN and some of his other films for We Are Movie Geeks.
Interview conducted by Tom Stockman October 3rd 2020.
Tom Stockman: Hello Jean. It’s super -nice to talk to you. I’ve enjoyed your movie roles for many years.
Jean Reno: Thank you.
TS: Let’s talk about this new film you’re in and are currently promoting, THE DOORMAN. In the film you play Victor Dubois. What appealed to you about this character?
JR: He is somebody that is a connoisseur of art. He likes rare paintings, and for him that is something that is very important. That’s why he was waiting for so many years to get these paintings back into his life.
TS: Can you relate to that? Are you a collector of art as well?
JR: Well, I am good friends with several painters. So yes, sometimes when I see a painting I wish I was wealthy enough to buy it. I think art and classical painting are very interesting subjects. I have some art, but nothing expensive of course.
TS: You’re often cast in these roles such as Victor Dubois. Do you enjoy playing the villain?
JR: Most of the time, I guess. Why not?
TS: When you were a young acting student in France, who were some of your favorite movie stars that specialized in villains?
JR: I would have to say Robert Mitchum. He could play the hero and the villain. He was such a great, versatile actor. I’d say he was my favorite. I appreciate actors that can do a variety of roles. I wouldn’t want to play the villain all the time, nor would I want to do comedy all of the time. I like to mix the genres.
TS: That’s you. You have even done some voiceover work for animated film such as FLUSHED AWAY.
JR: Yes, I like doing the vocal work. For me that is very interesting as well.
TS: What the role of Victor DuBois in THE DOORMAN something that was written for you, or did you audition for that role?
JR: That was one I understand that was written for me. He was a Frenchman who had been working in Europe. It was a good role for me and apparently the screenwriter thought so as well.
TS: And that was filmed in Romania, correct?
JR: Yes, Bucharest.
TS: What is it like filming in Bucharest compared to Hollywood?
JR: I found Bucharest to be a bit boring. Sometimes there are locations I enjoy more than others but the ambience there was a little dull for me. I just focused on the work and enjoyed being with the crew. I did not spend much time while filming this movie going to restaurants or visiting monuments. I just wasn’t attracted to the city.
Ruby Rose in THE DOORMAN
TS: What was it like working with Ruby Rose on THE DOORMAN?
JR: Working with her was a very good experience. She’s very disciplined and very talented and very ready. She was ready for everything. When you’re acting alongside someone who expects different challenges, it is a very nice experience. She had so much energy. She was never tired and wanted to always take things to the next level. And she was in very encouraging of all the other actors. She was always giving positive feedback to everyone else.
TS: Were you there when she filmed some of those fight scenes?
JR: Yes, I was there for some of that. I found her to be very tough and very able to do most of that stuff herself and do it so believably.
Jean Reno in Spike Lee’s DA FIVE BLOODS (2020)
TS: Let’s talk about a couple other of your films. What was it like working with Spike Lee last year on DA FIVE BLOODS?
JR: I like Spike Lee. He’s very opinionated. He knows exactly what he wants and he’s not wishy-washy about what his cast and crew are going to do on the set. That’s good for an actor because you feel secure if you’re working with someone who has that kind of vision. He’s very intense, and working with him is like performing a dance with him He will find in an actor exactly what he wants, so in the end, I found it very easy to work with him.
TS: Did you think that DA FIVE BLOODS was a good film?
JR: Yes I did. It had a good story about black men going back to Vietnam and finding out about themselves and about America. I feel Spike made the movie very honestly.
Jean Reno in THE BIG BLUE (1988)
TS: I watched THE BIG BLUE again recently. You show a lot of skill in the diving sequences.
JR: Yes that was something I had to learn, diving without tanks, for the movie. It was a big experience for me. We spent nine months shooting that movie, a very long shoot. I had to have a lot of very intense training. It was a big adventure for me.
TS: I recall you playing piano in THE BIG BLUE. Is music a hobby of yours?
JR: Yes. I play the piano and it is a hobby that I like very much.
TS: What movie do you think you are most recognized for when you were walking down the street?
JR: I’d say all over the world I am most recognized for THE PROFESSIONAL. Right now I am in Spain shooting a series for Amazon. I made a comedy last year here in Madrid that was very successful here, so I find I’m being recognized for that, so it depends on the country, but in most countries I would say I am most recognized for THE PROFESSIONAL.
Jean Reno and Natalie Portman in THE PROFESSIONAL (1994)
TS: That was Natalie Portman‘s first film. You must be proud of the career that she has had.
JR: Very proud because she is a fantastic person. As a human being, she is adorable and I love her very much.
TS: Would you like to work with her again?
JR: If I had the occasion, yes. Absolutely Even for free!
Jean Reno with his wife Zofia Borucka
TS: Do you think he will ever retire from acting or will you do this until the end?
JR: Retire is a very strange word to me but I will just let my body and my mind let me know when that time has arrived.
TS: What’s your next project Jean?
JR: I am working with a young director in France. He is just full of talent and we will have a project together for next year.
TS: Sounds good. Best of luck with THE DOORMAN and all of your future projects and thanks for taking the time to talk to me.
Ruby Rose (Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black”), Jean Reno (Leon: The Professional) and Rupert Evans (CW’s “Charmed”) star in the action-thriller The Doorman, premiering exclusively On Demand and Digital October 9, and on Blu-ray and DVD October 13 from Lionsgate. Check out the trailer:
An ex-Marine (Rose) returns to New York City to start a new chapter in life, but ends up being in the wrong place at the wrong time! Directed by Ryûhei Kitamura, The Doorman Blu-ray and DVD will be available for the suggested retail prices of $21.99 and $19.98 respectively. Check out the trailer HERE, a downloadable version and all other press materials can be found in the link below.
In this punishing action-thriller starring Ruby Rose, a former Marine turned doorman at a luxury New York City high-rise must outsmart and battle a group of art thieves and their ruthless leader (Jean Reno) — while struggling to protect her sister’s family. As the thieves become increasingly desperate and violent, the doorman calls upon her deadly fighting skills to end the showdown.
Jean Reno in the thriller COLD BLOOD. Photo credit: Screen Media
French action star Jean Reno re-teams with Thierry Arbogast, the cinematographer on LA FEMME NIKITA and,THE FIFTH ELEMENT, for action thriller COLD BLOOD. In this English-language French-Ukrainian film, Jean Reno plays a legendary hit man, the kind of role he has played well many times. With the help of cinematographer Arbogast, stunning locations, and a good supporting cast, they do their best to add style and suspense to this action thriller. Unfortunately, it is not enough to overcome the messy, nonsensical script.
Reno plays a retired hit man living in
a remote cabin in Washington State when a young woman (Sara Lind),
who has been injured in a snowmobile accident, suddenly turns up
nearly on his doorstep. This begins a twisty tale built around the
assassination of a mysterious billionaire, a tale of secrets, power,
and money, with a couple of persistent cops on the case and all set
in a snowy Washington State landscape.
With Thierry Arbogast’s stylish,
striking cinematography and some breathtaking scenery, the film
almost looks like a James Bond-like thriller. COLD BLOOD also stars
Joe Anderson (TWILIGHT), David Gyasi (INTERSTELLAR), François
Guétary (“Lost”) and Samantha Bond (“Downton Abbey”).
Director Frédéric Petitjean does try to build suspense and create a
feeling of a mystery but he is battling a script that isn’t sure
where it wants to go. However, he bears blame for this mess, as he
also wrote the script.
This film is filled with odd bits that seem to be there for no logical reason, or maybe because the filmmaker just wanted to include it but didn’t know how. The film opens in Washington State at Reno’s hermit hit man’s snowbound cabin but then flashes back to months earlier in New York City, where a wealthy man is assassinated. The film switches to Washington State for the millionaire’s lavish funeral. But then something weird happens, and the murder investigation moves to WA too.
Maybe the writer/director didn’t know that is not how murder investigations work in the U.S. or maybe there is an unseen investigation in NYC going on, but it really does not make sense – except that the filmmaker wanted the rest of the story to take place in snowy rural Washington (with Ukraine playing the part of Washington State). Why the script didn’t have the murder take place there to begin with is not clear, except maybe the filmmakers just wanted to shoot in NY (which plays itself in its brief scenes).
That bit of illogical plot is typical of the strangeness that runs throughout this thriller. If some of these oddities could have been played for comedy, but the film is played completely without humor. A few examples: In one scene as the young woman recuperates in the cabin, Reno’s character Henry fries a fish and serves her the whole fish on a plate, with only a wooden spoon to eat it. Neither of them reacts, as if everyone eats fried fish with a wooden spoon. Hmm. It’s not the only example either.
Overall, the plot makes no real sense and stretches itself in all kinds of directions trying to create plot twists and surprises. At times, the plot is far too transparent and then completely confusing at others. Although the film is in English, it is clear that some of the cast are dubbed, which adds an additional distraction to some scenes. The film ends with a dramatic scene, but since the script has not bothered to keep track of all the loose ends, it leaves the audience with plenty of unanswered questions and even big plot points unresolved. If they are still there.
Arbogast’s cinematography is
spectacular, making the best of the film’s admittedly wonderful
locations, which include breathtaking wilderness scenery and stately
mansions. The cinematography and art direction are excellent,
providing the film’s major enjoyment, Too bad all that beauty serves
such a lame story.
Likewise, Reno does his best with this
sorry material, and he manages to milk a few good moments, Overall
the cast is good but there is only so much they and Reno can do with
this sloppily cobbled together story.
COLD BLOOD opens Friday, July 5, in
several cities and is available on-demand.
RONIN Starring Robert DeNiro and directed by John Frankenheimer will be available from Arrow Academy on August 28th.
RONIN: Noun, historical. A samurai who no longer serves a daimyo, or feudal lord.
From director John Frankenheimer (Reindeer Games, The Manchurian Candidate) comes Ronin, a pulse-pounding, action-packed crime thriller featuring an all-star cast headlined by Robert De Niro (Taxi Driver, Heat) and Jean Reno (Léon: The Professional).
On a rain-swept night in Paris, an international crack team of professional thieves assembles, summoned by a shady crime syndicate fronted by the enigmatic Deirdre (Natascha McElhone, The Devil’s Own). Their mission: to steal a heavily guarded briefcase from armed mobsters, its contents undisclosed. But what begins as a routine heist soon spirals into chaos, with the group beset by a series of double-crosses and constantly shifting allegiances, and it falls to world-weary former CIA strategist Sam (De Niro) and laconic Frenchman Vincent (Reno) to hold the mission together.
A latter-day return to form for Frankenheimer, the film evokes the same gritty milieu as classic 70s crime fare like The French Connection, in addition to anticipating the early 21st century trend towards more grounded, realistic action movies, exemplified by the likes of the Bourne franchise. Arrow Video is proud to present Ronin in a brand new, cinematographer-approved 4K restoration, allowing this jewel in the crown of 90s thriller cinema to shine like never before.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
Brand new 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative produced by Arrow Video exclusively for this release, supervised and approved by director of photography Robert Fraisse
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p)
Original English 5.1 audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Audio commentary by director John Frankenheimer
Brand new video interview with director of photography Robert Fraisse
Paul Joyce documentary on Robert De Niro
Ronin: Filming in the Fast Lane, an archival behind-the-scenes featurette
Through the Lens, an archival interview with Robert Fraisse
The Driving of Ronin, an archival featurette on the film’s legendary car stunts
Natascha McElhone: An Actor’s Process, an archival interview with the actress
Composing the Ronin Score, an archival interview with composer Elia Cmiral
In the Ronin Cutting Room, an archival interview with editor Tony Gibbs
Venice Film Festival interviews with Robert De Niro, Jean Reno and Natascha McElhone
Alternate ending
Theatrical trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork
Relativity’s upcoming movie, HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS – starring Simon Pegg, Toni Collette, Rosamund Pike, Stellan Skarsgård, Jean Reno and Christopher Plummer – is opening later this month, and to celebrate WAMG is giving away a HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS prize pack. Hurray!
One lucky winner will receive:
$50 in Orbucks (Orbitz Rewards)
“Handy Dandy” travel candy (featured in the movie)
Branded travel journal
$25 Fandango gift card
TO ENTER:
1. YOU MUST BE A U.S. RESIDENT WITH A U.S. SHIPPING ADDRESS. NO P.O. BOXES.
2. PLACE YOUR NAME, A VALID EMAIL, AND ANSWER TO THE QUESTION BELOW IN THE COMMENT SECTION OF THIS POST.
3. What movie makes you happy?
WINNERS WILL BE CHOSEN THROUGH A RANDOM DRAWING OF QUALIFYING CONTESTANTS. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. PRIZES WILL NOT BE SUBSTITUTED OR EXCHANGED.
Hector (Simon Pegg) is a quirky psychiatrist who has become increasingly tired of his humdrum life. As he tells his girlfriend, Clara (Rosamund Pike), he feels like a fraud: he hasn’t really tasted life, and yet he’s offering advice to patients who are just not getting any happier. So Hector decides to break out of his deluded and routine driven life. Armed with buckets of courage and child-like curiosity, he embarks on a global quest in hopes of uncovering the elusive secret formula for true happiness. And so begins a larger than life adventure with riotously funny results. Based on the world-wide best-selling novel of the same name, Hector and the Search for Happiness is a rich, exhilarating, and hilarious tale from director Peter Chelsom, starring Simon Pegg, Toni Collette, Rosamund Pike, Stellan Skarsgård, Jean Reno and Christopher Plummer.
“We should concern ourselves not so much with the pursuit of happiness, but with the happiness of the pursuit.”Professor Coreman (Christopher Plummer)
Earn and redeem rewards in an instant. Join today at Orbitz.com/rewards and get Instant Vacation Gratification!
Learn more about HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS on:
“We should concern ourselves not so much with the pursuit of happiness, but with the happiness of the pursuit.” Professor Coreman (Christopher Plummer).
Here’s your first look at the heartwarming new trailer for HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS. Based on the best-selling novel by Francois Lelord, HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS is directed by Peter Chelsom and features an all star cast lead by Simon Pegg.
It was announced today that the film will be premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival on the evening of September 7th.
Check out the feel-good trailer of the week.
Hector (Simon Pegg) is a quirky psychiatrist who has become increasingly tired of his humdrum life. As he tells his girlfriend, Clara (Rosamund Pike), he feels like a fraud: he hasn’t really tasted life, and yet he’s offering advice to patients who are just not getting any happier. So Hector decides to break out of his deluded and routine driven life. Armed with buckets of courage and child-like curiosity, he embarks on a global quest in hopes of uncovering the elusive secret formula for true happiness. And so begins a larger than life adventure with riotously funny results.
Based on the world-wide best-selling novel of the same name, HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS is a rich, exhilarating, and hilarious tale from director Peter Chelsom, starring Simon Pegg, Toni Collette, Rosamund Pike, Stellan Skarsgård, Jean Reno and Christopher Plummer.
Be on the lookout for HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS when it opens in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on September 19th, in limited release on September 26th, and wide on October 3rd.
Learn more about HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS on:
Watch the trailer for Relativity Media’s HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS, starring Simon Pegg, Rosamund Pike, Toni Collette, Stellan Skarsgård, Jean Reno and Christopher Plummer.
Directed by Peter Chelsom (FUNNY BONES, SHALL WE DANCE, SERENDIPITY), the film opens in UK cinemas August 15 from Koch Media Films; on September 19 in New York and LA by Relativity.
This spirited and life-affirming movie is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by François Lelord, the script is written by Maria von Heland, Chelsom and Tinker Lindsay.
Pegg plays Hector, an eccentric yet irresistible London psychiatrist in crisis: his patients are just not getting any happier! He’s going nowhere. Then one day, armed with buckets of courage and an almost child-like curiosity, Hector breaks out of his sheltered life into a global quest to find out if happiness exists. More importantly, if it exists for Hector. And so begins a colorful, exotic, dangerous and hysterical journey.
ARMORED is easily one of the dullest action films I’ve ever seen in my entire life. The story is bland, the characters are uninteresting and worst of all, it’s just plain lazy. ARMORED is about a young war veteran Ty (Columbus Short), and his younger brother Jimmy (Andre Kinney), who’s parents have passed away in the last year. Ty has taken it upon himself to get a job and take care of his younger broth. Ty’s job is that of an armored truck guard. He helps move large amounts of money from one place to another. He got the job because his father worked at the company, Eagle Shield Security, as does his godfather Mike (Matt Dillon). The biggest problem in Ty’s life is that he’s just not making enough money and the bank is threatening to take his house.
When ARMORED starts, Ty is just a rookie, a probationary member of the team, but soon he’s a full fledged guard. This is when Mike presents Ty with an offer. Knowing that Ty is down on his luck and that he could lose his house and Jimmy he presents the idea of robbing the armored trucks by setting up a fake ambush. The take would be fourty two million dollars split a few different ways worthless supporting cast of armored truck security agents. Ty of course, being the moral force of good in the story can’t really justify the theft of that much money until he’s present with another problem that could separate him from his brother until Jimmy tuns 18. Ty’s in, but only if no one gets hurt… of course everything goes terribly wrong and soon it’s Ty against a group of actors that I would have loved to have seen in any movie but this.
I have a lot of complaints with ARMORED and the biggest one is the cast. You have actors like Laurence Fishburne playing Baines, a veteran in the world of armored trucks. You also have Jean Reno, a favorite actor of mine, playing Quinn, a character with so few lines that he’s barely a character at all. The rest of the cast is filled out with the likes of Skeet Ulrich who doesn’t say a word for the first 45 minutes he’s on screen. Milo Ventimiglia shows up as Eckhart, a sherif who stumbles upon the situation and who gives a pretty decent performance considering the role he’s given. But other wise you have a completely wasted cast. Any of these characters could have been punched up, given some depth and made the story interesting. Instead they sit around for about an hour trying to get Ty out of a truck. It’s one of the most boring films I’ve ever seen for that reason.
My other huge complaint with the film is just the wasted potential. You have a movie about armored trucks, moving vaults armed to the teeth, safer than most banks, and what does the story have them do? Nothing. A guy sits in one for a long time trying to figure out how to not get killed while the rest of the guys try to get in. When you have a movie about cool looking powerful trucks, and you give them so many glory shots at the start of the film, it’d be best to keep them moving for the majority of the movie. Instead the movie comes to a crawl when the thieves make off with the money and hold up in an old steel mill that suffers from “Hollywood Design-itis” which is when it’s very obvious a set was made for very particular shots and lacks any organic feel whatsoever. Had this movie really been about a moving heist, a constant chase for money involving these two amazing vehicles, it could have had some punch to it, instead it just sits and gets very boring very soon.
I honestly can’t recommend this movie in any way. It’s a stagnant slab of mediocrity filled with big names that are given nothing to do. Matt Dillon is an academy award winner, Jean Reno is one of the better French actors of all time, and Laurence Fishburne is Morpheus, the ultimate symbol of cool. But here they’re all just faces standing around. The dialog is boring and I swear I nodded off for a second and didn’t miss a thing (my room mate informed me of such). Any movie that puts me to sleep (which is really hard to do) doesn’t deserve my time. ARMORED gets 1 out of 5… and that’s like getting an E for effort.
Last week, I wrote a little about the reasons someone would decide to become a filmmaker. On one hand, they have a passion for it and their first project is a labor of love that clearly has something to say. On the other hand, they just feel like it is the right thing to do in their career, and they make the jump from actor/writer/cinematographer/etc. up to the director’s chair. There was a third reason out there that I wasn’t thinking about, and it didn’t hit me until I was reflecting on the new comedy, COUPLES RETREAT. The third reason someone might become a filmmaker is that their friends have a screenplay that “needs” to get done, and they turn to you to fill the director’s role. Whatever lack of vision comes with the second of these three reasons is certainly made even more clear when looking at this third reason, particularly in the case of Peter Billingsley and COUPLES RETREAT, a flat tire of a comedy that clunks along to its inevitable outcome and that only piques your funny bone interest one or two times.
Starring an ensemble cast, COUPLES RETREAT features four couples made up of Vince Vaughn & Malin Akerman, Jason Bateman & Kristen Bell, Jon Favreau & Kristin Davis, and Faizon Love & Kali Hawk. The couple made of Bateman & Bell feel that they are slowly headed towards divorce, and, as such, they decide to book reservations on a tropical island. But this isn’t exactly Fantasy Island. Instead of jet skiing and parasailing, they spend their mornings in couple’s therapy, talking about their feelings towards one another. The other three couples, needless to say, tag along out of A) solidarity for their struggling friends and B) under the ruse that the therapy sessions are optional. They aren’t, and, before you know it, all four couples are forced into working on their relationships within themselves. Lots of screaming and hilarity ensue.
The most prominent issue that is keeping COUPLES RETREAT from succeeding as a comedy is its pace. In the first half of the film, literally every scene seems saddlebagged with about three or four minutes of unnecessary back-and-forth between the characters. Most of these scenes get to the heart of it pretty quickly. We get that Favreau and Davis are each looking to cheat on their spouse, and, in all likelihood, they have done just that. We get that Vaughn and Akerman are just plodding along, much like this film, getting by as best as they can without any real happiness. We understand that Love’s wife left him and he is rebounding with Hawk, a girl who is 20 years younger than he. We catch all of this very early on, but these points become hammered into our heads. Before long, we just want the film to make us laugh rather than feeding us all this meaningless exposition on every character.
This problem rests squarely on the shoulders of Billingsley’s lack of experience as a director in the editing room. It’s not as if the film’s editor, Dan Lebintal, is a poor editor. He’s done excellent work with Favreau in the director’s seat with ‘Elf,’ ‘Zathura,’ and ‘Iron Man.’ Unfortunately, here, he just doesn’t know what to trim, and that is probably because he had no one telling him what to trim. The film runs nearly two hours in length, and, easily, 20 minutes of that could have been cut without notice.
The actors involved try their best to get the funny train rolling. Vaughn screams his way through scenes revolving around sharks, yoga, and Guitar Hero, the only three scenes that really bring out the belly laughs. Favreau works his charm as the adulterous jerk. Love is, no pun intended, lovable, but his character is given short-thrift when it comes to the out-and-out funny moments. Bateman, and Bell, for that matter, is given a pretty thankless role. Though it’s not something he is a stranger to, he doesn’t seem to be behind it here, and it shows. Akerman tries her hardest to be the cutest out of the group, and she ends up being the closest to a “straight man” in the entirety of the film. Davis has moments here and there, but nothing that just cries out for her to be noticed. Hawk plays really the only annoying character in the whole film, and she does so with absolute bravado.
The secondary actors pull their parts off well, also. Jean Reno as the resort’s manager is as funny as his pony tail allows him to be. Carlos Ponce as the yoga instructor helps make that scene one of the funniest and most memorable. Peter Serafinowicz plays Sctanley (pronounced Stanley), the resort’s host, with a huffy wit. John Michael Higgins and Ken Jeong play therapists, and show up just long enough for the crowd to react to the fact that John Michael Higgins and Ken Jeong are in this movie.
It’s a shame when you observe a film like COUPLES RETREAT, a comedy that has so much going for it but that doesn’t seem to put anything in its arsenal to good use. With a cast like this, and a premise that practically writes its own bits of comedy, the film should have been so much more. In fact, it should have done so much more with so much less, as it seems to be piled high with pointless scenes and staggering moments of blandness. While there are certain jokes throughout that hit, and some of them hit pretty hard, a majority of them miss completely. You would think watching Vaughn, Bateman, and Favreau having a lousy time in Tahiti would be a laugh-riot, and, in the hands of a more experienced director, you’d probably be right. COUPLES RETREAT doesn’t do that, and, instead, we have a vibrant look at a whole lot of funny people doing a whole lot of unfunny things.
