A good movie

Ben Stiller has been for a while one of the most successful comic actors during the last 20 years but, as a director, he has been struggling somehow. His directing debut ‘Reality Bites’ was barely seen when it was released (since then it has become more or less a cult-status. You should check it out) and his sophomore directing effort was seriously a flop. Personally, I thought that this flick was pretty good. Indeed, something I always enjoyed and admired with Jim Carrey is that, from time to time, he chooses to move away from his usual hysterical funny parts and tries something drastically different. Here, he remains a funny guy but displays a rather dark and ominous personality which I found quite intriguing. Maybe the audience at the time were put off by seeing Carrey playing the bad guy? I don’t know, the whole concept was not bad but not particularly amazing and Matthew Broderick remains one of the most underwhelming lead actors I have ever seen. Eventually, Ben Stiller would be more successful as a director 5 years later with ‘Zoolander’ (a movie I found personally truly appalling). To conclude, in spite of its flaws, it remains, in my opinion, a pretty good dark comedy and it is actually definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

7/10