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Reviews |
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Source:
rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
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Capsule review: Nicolas Cage plays an honest cop
who agrees to share a lottery ticket with a waitress,
then finds himself sharing four million dollars. This is
a light summer love story that also makes some comment on
the selfish and unselfish uses of good fortune. Cage and
Bridget Fonda make a likable couple. Rating: high +1 (-4
to +4)
IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU is claimed to be based on fact both internally and in the publicity. In actual fact, just about none of it is true, but the basic situation of a policeman sharing a lottery ticket as a tip and then splitting the payoff when the ticket actually wins. Jane Anderson's screenplay takes that situation as a springboard to tell a fable about greed and unselfishness. Surprisingly, the invented story is not all that far from credibility.
Charlie Lang (played by Nicolas Cage) is a good, honest cop who lives the kind of life that a good honest cop can expect to live. He has a one-bedroom apartment, a lot of aggravation, and a dissatisfied wife Muriel (Rosie Perez) who is getting ready to give up on Charlie and look for something new. One day Charlie buys a lottery ticket. Then getting a cup of coffee he finds he does not have money for a tip so promises to split any lottery winnings with his waitress, Yvonne Biasi (Bridget Fonda). When the ticket wins to the tune of four million dollars Charlie's wife Muriel wants Charlie to keep all the money for themselves. Charlie insists repeatedly that a promise is a promise and splits the money with Yvonne.
As Charlie discovers, winning the lottery completely changes who you are and how people relate to you. Charlie and Yvonne find kindred spirits in each other, each wanting to spend much of the money unselfishly. They also begin getting interested in each other. Muriel, on the other hand, wants to enjoy every dollar spending on herself. What is more, she wants all four million. What results is neither entirely expected or unrealistic. On top of this is a rather pleasant love story in which Cage and Fonda work very well together on the screen.
And Fonda and Cage are something of a surprise as a screen couple. Cage has overcome the goopy kid roles he has played in the past and carries the film reasonably well as a leading man. He has, of course, worked with director Andrew Bergman before in HONEYMOON IN VEGAS. Fonda is captivating with a winning smile and a more winning acting talent. Slightly misjudged is Rosie Perez whose grating voice was somehow an asset when she played the traumatized plane passenger in FEARLESS, but here, playing a human cockroach, she seems just insufferable on the screen. Also disappointing is the limiting of Stanley Tucci to three scenes as Yvonne's wandering husband. Tucci is a rubber-faced actor who proved he had a great deal of comic potential as Alec Baldwin's best friend in PRELUDE TO A KISS.
Anderson's screenplay has a lot of what was good in older Frank Capra films. Unfortunately Capra films were far from perfect and an unrealistic turn of events toward the end of the film is lifted straight from a Frank Capra film. What is oddly missing is the attention to well-observed character development that one would find in a Capra film. It is odd because Anderson proved she was good at creating charactersin THE POSITIVELY TRUE ADVENTURES OF THE ALLEGED TEXAS CHEERLEADER- MURDERING MOM for HBO. Here, instead of developing the minor characters the screenwriter actually seemed to be working with a checklist to make sure a wide variety of ethnic minorities were represented in the film. Also the telling of the story with a narrator seems to be a false move on the part of the author.
IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU is not a great film, but it is an enjoyable love story and a pleasant change from much gun-blazing summer entertainment available in the theaters right now. I would give it a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
By : Mark R. Leeper
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Source:
rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
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IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU is nice. It's about nice people who do nice things for other nice people, and how nice things happen to them as a result. It's also about not-so-nice people who do not-so- nice things, and how they are similarly rewarded. It wears its niceness so baldly on its sleeve that it's impossible to miss it. Mind you, I have nothing against niceness; heaven knows there is far too little of it portrayed in movies these days. But IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU is so busy being nice that it forgets to be interesting, resulting in a watery, flavorless little love story with a good heart.
Based (oh-so-loosely) on a real event, IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU tells the story of Charlie Lang (Nicolas Cage), a decent New York beat cop married to gold-digging beautician Muriel (Rosie Perez). One afternoon, Charlie is without sufficient money to leave a tip for down-on-her-luck diner waitress Yvonne Biasi (Bridget Fonda). To make it up to her, Charlie offers Yvonne half of whatever winnings he might receive from the lottery ticket he is holding. The ticket turns out to be a $4 million winner, making Yvonne's cut $2 million. This development goes over not at all well with Muriel, who begins to make life even more miserable for Charlie, and soon Charlie and Yvonne find they have more in common than their new fortune.
IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU was originally titled COP GIVES WAITRESS $2M TIP, and it was then that I should have smelled trouble. Tri-Star clearly wanted to play up the story as a fairly tale, and from the opening shot of New York City's skyline being revealed through removed laundry, you know that's what you've got. There seems to have been a desire to make a "decent guy fights the system" comedy, something that would inspire that much mis-used adjective "Capra-esque." However, one wonders whether anyone involved in IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU ever saw a Frank Capra film. The Capra heroes played by James Stewart, Gary Cooper and others were not spotless, just basically good folks struggling to do the right thing. Nicolas Cage's Charlie, on the other hand, is too good for sainthood, helping blind people across busy intersections, playing stickball with neighborhood kids and intoning "a promise is a promise" at regular intervals. I almost wondered whether the nice guy character was being mocked. Bridget Fonda is nearly as angelic, though she is given a tough background to overcome and an endearing fatalism. She does a lot of interesting things with her performance, and has a standout scene where she first registers her good fortune, dispensing free ice cream to all of her customers. Fonda and Cage are two likable actors, but ultimately there is not a drop of tension in their relationship. They're too perfect _not_ to end up together.
That's a real disappointment, because I expect better from Andrew Bergman. He has written or co-written some of the funniest and quirkiest screenplays of the last twenty years, including BLAZING SADDLES, THE IN-LAWS and THE FRESHMAN, and directed last year's enjoyable HONEYMOON IN VEGAS. He is working here with a screenplay by Jane Anderson, who also showed a sharp wit with THE POSITIVELY TRUE ADVENTURES OF THE ALLEGED TEXAS CHEERLEADER MURDERING MOM for HBO. Both of them should know better. Comedy requires some kind of edge to get it rolling, whether it's situation or character, and IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU has neither. At its best, it produces a few smiles.
At its worst, Rosie Perez is on screen. As the "villain" of the film, Perez plays Muriel as an unrepentant shrew-from-hell, and it's the kind of part where she's in the most trouble. Her voice, somewhat grating in its most tolerable moments, skyrockets into dog whistle range when she browbeats Cage. It is a performance so annoying that even had IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU been satisfying on all other counts, she might have spoiled the experience singlehandedly.
There's nothing wrong with fairy tale love stories; BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was one of the most romantic film experiences of the decade so far. But those animated characters were more real than anyone in IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU.
By : Scott Renshaw
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