“What’s the Worst That Could Happen?” (2001) is a rhetorical question, but there is an answer. The worst that could happen is you could assemble an incredibly deep cast (Nora Dunn, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Bernie Mac and many more) for an interesting story pitting white collar and streetwise crooks against each other in a match of masculine one-upmanship – but then have Martin Lawrence as the star. Lawrence’s schtick and some horrible impersonations by he and John Leguizamo are a lowest-common-denominator drag that exacerbates an uneven performance by co-star Danny DeVito as a lascivious corporate raider who spars with Lawrence’s burglar.
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If you like rom-coms, how about a rom-dram? Broken people are brought to a Texas farm to search for their missing pieces in “The Lost Husband” (2020). While the b-list, TV-ish stars (Leslie Bibb, Josh Duhamel) and a key plotline (widowed, suburban mom is thrown together with hunky, divorced farmhand) would seem ripe for the standard hijinks, the laughs are muffled by layers of mourning, secrets, dysfunction and mournful secrets about secret dysfunction. Ready to cry yet? Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of opportunities. Pleasant surprise: ex-SNLer Nora Dunn holds the story together in a controlled performance as Bibb’s aunt.
Is it possible to give an over-the-top performance when your character is a male model? What about a fashion designer? Or a talent agent? There’s so much scenery chewing going on in “Zoolander” (2001) you almost become numb to it and actually pay attention to the plot. Almost. To say it’s stupid is to say grass is green. But, you ask, what about crabgrass? It’s brownish. And what about that weird albino grass that grows under the kiddie pool when you leave it in the front yard for too long? To that, I say “Zoolander” is right up your alley.
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