My second criticism directed towards the film is the dialogue. The dialogue consists of obscenities, melodramatic schmaltz (that’s a double whammy) informing the audience what is going on through expository dialogue, and awful jokes. One such joke consists of Robin Williams comparing sex with his wife to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (you read that correctly). Like every other joke in the movie, it is as funny out of context as it is in context, not funny at all.
My third criticism is directed towards the lack of originality presented in the film’s plot. Anyone reading this review or who has seen more than one movie, read a book, or watched TV in their lifetime has seen variations of this plot a hundred different times. The Scenario: an angry character must change their ways, must rights all of his/her wrongs, learns a lesson in the end, blah, blah, blah. This plot has not been original since A Christmas Carol was written by Charles Dickens in 1843. The worst part about this is that the film does not at least offers any new spins on this tired formula. To make it even worse, the execution is not very good to begin with. Another movie on VOD, The Double (Check out Jon’s review here) – unlike The Angriest Man In Brooklyn – succeeds largely because of its execution. Richard Ayoade makes you believe The Double is incredibly original not because it does anything very different from any other movies (It is almost a mix between Brazil and Fight Club), but because his directing style and storytelling is so damn excellent that it makes you feel like you have never seen any of the plot devices before. The Angriest Man In Brooklyn offers nothing spellbinding in the plot department. Maybe it is unfair to expect that from such a “comedy.” However, my view is that if a screenwriter and director wants to spit out an overdone story, fine, but put a new twist on it for the audience’s sake!
My fourth criticism is directed at the film’s character development. The character development is clichéd, corny, and done all through clunky exposition. An example of the dialogue’s corniness is when it is revealed that part of why Henry is estranged from his son (played by William’s The Crazy One’s co-star, Hamish Linklater) is because his son wanted to go to the Brooklyn School of Dance, and Henry shot down his dreams and said dancing is a stupid career choice. What’s next? Dancing is outlawed, and his son goes to dance alone in a warehouse to blow off steam? This scene really made me wonder, “Is this movie trying to be as clichéd as possible?” It was the only time I found myself laughing during this movie, and let’s just say I was not laughing along with the movie.
Phil Alden Robinson, the director of Field of Dreams, chose The Angriest Man In Brooklyn as his first directional venture in 12 years. This movie is proof that he should never have returned to be the director of anything professional ever again. He should probably not even man a camcorder. Maybe that is a bit extreme. The film looks like a high budget TV movie, the transitions and cuts are downright juvenile, and every flashback sequence looks like a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie.
However, all of these criticisms disturbed me less than the complete lack of empathy I felt towards anything in The Angriest Man In Brooklyn after the first 20 minutes. I tried to give this movie a chance, and alas, I simply could not. I did not care about anything it had to offer. Robin William’s could have been violently run-over by a steamroller for an hour of this movie’s running time with his screams done in an Alvin and The Chipmunks sound effect, and I would not have even made a peep. I am not heartless. About Time made me cry my eyes out. The reason I am spewing so much vitriol towards this movie is because I actually expected something good to come out of it. Or maybe I am just bitter that I cannot get that hour and a half of my life back.
To be quite honest, I found very little good to outweigh the bad in the The Angriest Man In Brooklyn. I am stunned at how much hatred I have towards this movie. It is not the worst movie I have ever seen…but it could be one of them. It is simply agonizing to watch. Crude, predictable, badly acted, poorly written, and unprofessionally directed.
I had to rack my brain for any good qualities that this movie had and I truly only found one great thing about it. Peter Dinklage. Peter Dinklage can save practically anything. Dinklage’s role as Aaron is without a shred of doubt, the best quality that this piece of garbage has to offer. The character of Aaron is not very well written, but Dinklage’s overwhelming appeal as an actor and energy of his delivery of dialogue more than makes up for this. The only admirable thing about this movie is that much like in X-Men: Days of Future Past, the fact that Dinklage has dwarfism has no attention brought to it. Aaron is just a normal man. The lack of attention toward Dinklage’s condition not only proves how respected Peter Dinklage is as an actor, but it shows that extraordinary talent has the potential to outweigh physical appearance. Could a tide be turning in Hollywood? Maybe. Admittedly, I am just fooling myself into believing that that was the film’s intention in order to give the film a rating slightly above the very harsh 1 out of 10. If this is the only think available to watch on VOD, you should just go to sleep.
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Rating: 1.5 out of 10
The Angriest Man in Brooklyn is available for rent or buy on VOD, Amazon Instant, and iTunes. It will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on July 22nd. Rated R.
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