Film making generally doesn't lend itself to making it up as you go along. So much needs to be locked down in terms of dialogue and movement before the camera rolls to ensure the director gets exactly the shot they need, and the actors say the lines they're required to say to advance the story.
I've got no solid proof but it seems to me very probable that Ferrell is improvising the dialogue in many of the scenes of this overblown and spectacularly unfunny mismatched buddies cop caper. Why? Well he's paired with a straight co-star, Mark Wahlberg, who's eager to please and happy to react to whatever Ferrell throws at him, hoping that some of that comedy gold will rub off on him (it doesn't), and their characters are placed in one set-up after another which just shriek "here's the premise. Now run with it!" to a star of Will's stature and proclivities.
And if my feeling about this film isn't good enough for you just stick around until the very end of the final credits. There's a scene cut from the main movie in which Ferrell is very obviously and un-amusingly riffing on the lines Wahlberg is feeding him.
The alternative to my improvisation abortion theory is almost too horrible to contemplate - that all the dialogue has been scripted and Ferrell is simply repeating his lines as written. For humour this lame to have been written and revised before director Adam McKay called "action!" verges on criminal. At the very least it opens the door to a charge of taking money under false pretences on behalf of all those who bought cinema tickets or the DVD believing they were paying to see a comedy.
For the sake of his reputation Ferrell should step away from the cameras and wait for a genuinely funny script to come along. If he continues on this current course of believing he's talented enough to make a silk purse out of any sow's ear that lands in his lap he'll wind up as the next Eddie Murphy.
No comments:
Post a Comment