Big Nothing

source: Big Nothing

Big Nothing, a dark comedy about a scam that gradually gets worse, is a movie that gradually gets better. The first half has Simon Pegg (Shaun Of The Dead) running around with Friends star David Schwimmer and talented, blonde Alice Eve. They plan a scam that goes increasingly wrong. Woody Allen would have done it so much better - one of his silly, stumbling crime capers like Curse Of The Jade Scorpion. But as the bodies pile up and the heavy rock soundtrack and funky camera-work kick in, Big Nothing gets bigger and better. Eventually it is clear that the filmmakers don't give a toss and are just having a laugh - whether or not you join them depends largely on your taste in comedy. Charlie (Schwimmer) is trying to be an author but no-one wants to buy him. His wife Penelope (Natascha McElhone) is a deputy sheriff, but they are struggling to raise their child on one income. Charlie meets Gus (Pegg) at a call centre but gets fired on the first day. With their friend Josie, they hatch a well-meaning scam to blackmail a porno-hoarding priest. When the day comes, everything they do goes wrong and corpses are littering the landscape faster than you can say low-budget film off the coast of Wales (but really meant to be in Oregon). But Big Nothing is amusing in a way that is not immediately obvious, and if you stay till the end (including the extra couple of outtakes in the credits) it may grow on you. In the technical support call centre, Gus and Charlie repeatedly ask callers if they have switched their computers on, and swear at them while pressing the mute button. Is this meant to be funny or is it a joke about dumb jokes? Big Nothing is a very uneven film, whether by intention or design. We reject one kind of humour only to have another sneak up on us. "I happen to be a very good con man," says Gus. "What do you want me to do - waste it?" There are ripples of laughter in the audience. The increasingly unlikely twists with people dying unexpectedly (like a passive version of a slasher spoof) get confusing. Although there's a very direct reference to The Matrix, it's almost as if the filmmakers have too low an attention span to continue in one vein for very long. Multiple screens and hand-sketches of plot developments add visual interest, and with Rammstein blaring in the background you might cease to care. Keep a few cans of Bud to watch this one with - it might improve it and can't make it any worse.

It must take talent to make a movie with Simon Pegg and not be able to produce a single laugh. A pointless black comedy that's only objective is to make things worse and worse for the main characters by introducing a number of ridiculous and predictable plot twists. If you've seen Very Bad Things then you've seen this movie. It starts off nicely enough and introduces some likable characters, but it goes absolutely nowhere and seems to think rolling out one silly plot twist after another makes for a good movie. As unfunny as the movie is, it's at least watchable for the first two acts....but in the third get ready to be let down big time. It goes downhill so fast you won't know what hit you. There are so many plot holes your head will spin. By the end you'll just be bored, ticked off and confused. This is literally one of those movies that has no progression. This movie is the meaning of the word pointless. I think all the good reviews on here have come from the director's friends. Note to future directors.....don't make Simon Pegg talk with a god awful American accent as it renders him humorless.

Hi! Specially registered on IMDb to share with my feelings about that film. Didn't expect such a good film at first, after few minutes enjoyed it as a kid. I really do claim that film as one of the best I've ever seen. Great humor, good music, unexpected finish... the movie was the best made ever. May it seems weird, but I've watched such amounts of bad-movies that really killed my power for new comedies. This one changed that, now I know that it is still possible to make a really good comedy movie. Producer should be really proud of this movie, everything was OK, the art of playing, choosing the right people to play, suitable soundtrack. Definitely one of 'must seen' movies. 10 points without any doubts! Do not know what else can I say.

a rating of 6.8, a good cast, this all looked very promising but not for the first time I wonder what drugs some people on here take when they watch movies. While not diabolical, this is easily in my worst 100 movies of all time list. Crime capers should have a fairly watertight plot,believable characters and some depth, this had none of any of those and after 30 minutes, it was clear to me that the writers were making this up as it went along. As for the supposed black humor,it was neither tongue in cheek or even funny, David schwimmer calling himself steven hawking was probably the highlight of the film. With such a low budget, I'm not really sure why they filmed in both canada and wales, the expense involved in flying back and forth,money would have been better spent employing a director and writer who knew how to make a movie. Absolutely no surprise, this didn't get a proper release, you'll find this in the $5 carts at walmart soon, you'd be better off buying bog roll.

The firs 20 minutes is OK, but after that it's downhill all the way. A movie with this cast, especially the hilarious Mr Pegg, should have had a good chance of giving me a few laughs, but that never happen. A big, big disappointment. It's a farce alright, but it's not funny. A lousy plot, and disappointing acting. I think the manuscript is the one to blame the most for this boring experience. Actually the best thing about this movie is the soundtrack (Eels, Ramstein etc.) If you're looking for comedy I recommend you to re watch "Shaun of the Dead" instead of wasting time on this movie. Because this is not a movie I would recommend anyone.

Big Nothing is a film in which you feel sorry for the actors. You see them struggling, leaking flop sweat trying to do their best with the one note characters they've been given: "Hi! I'm the resident trickster character with bs stories up to yin yang ready for any and all occasions! I'll be providing the macguffin for this film in the form of a ransoming scheme and be throwing in humorous colour commentary when necessary." "Hey! I'm the smart-talking, sass-deploying teenage beauty queen who abandoned a career as a trophy wife for a millionaire to work in a run down bar and pursue crime enterprise. FYI, I'm capable of doing just about anything to get on top! Including homicide, because as a noir character, I've rid myself of a soul for the sake of the plot"; And finally: "Hey, I'm the basically good-guy dad pulled into this obviously ill-conceived ransoming scheme out of love for my cute daughter. Ask me about my back story! You bet it's heartrending! Oh, and don't forget, my wife is a police officer! Insane to even consider committing a crime, right? Well that's just how much I love my daughter!" The actor work hard, and yet the writer of this film clearly hates them. Why else would he confine them in this mess of story, which plods from boring event to boring event as the bodies pile up and one wonders if perhaps this movie has really been thought through, and what conversation had been going on in the writer's head as he type out this bit of detritus. "So okay, we got the wife suddenly arrive pointing a gun at the tied-up cop and two main characters. She reveals pertinent info helping us understand what's going on. What now?" "How's about an axe to the head by a character who shows up out of the blue, having acquired an axe, ready for homicide?" "Golden! Who need a rich storyline when you have crappy movie magic?" "I know, right? All right, so what's the next twist gonna be?" "Let's have three betrayals followed by another ridiculous happenstance that insults our audience's credulity. You realize that we now have two dozen more twists than 'Chinatown' and that's a noir classic!" "I smell Oscar!"

Watchable, yet ultimately disappointing piece that tries hard to be as edgy and original as "Lock, Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels", but it just can't rise above its mediocre script. The running gag of ill-timed coincidences and random encounters runs out of gas quickly -- and then becomes rather boring and irksome, not to mention predictable (...okay, so I WILL mention it!) The piece is stylish enough -- but it's kind of like reading a letter written by someone with great penmanship. You end up being more interested in how the words LOOK rather than what they say... which unfortunately is what happens with "Big Nothing". Style over content. Simon Plegg has fun with the limited material he's given, but David Schwimmer seems to have some trouble breaking free of his whiny Ross character from "Friends"... and Natascha McElhone is all but wasted in a peripheral roll that is, in the end, unsatisfying and unbelievable.

Big Nothing revolves around Charlie, an everyman who gets caught up in a blackly comic mess of cash and dead bodies after meeting Gus, an American accented Simon Pegg. The initial setup is pretty thin, the call centre setting a missed opportunity, as is the plot, characters and motives. One would hope that when embarking on a scheme, that it would be smart looking to begin with, at the very least smart enough to rope in someone you've only just met, but this scheme is quite foolish from the outset. Charlie's problems are not even fully realised enough to make him look desperate. The slim running time and impatience to get to the meat don't help. Charlie is also irredeemably stupid. An ex teacher with a PHD should know how to check for a pulse or that leaving fingerprints all over the scene of the crime is not the smartest thing one could do. Pegg's character just whines and bitches throughout and doesn't even cut a likable rogue figure. In fact, surprisingly, there's nothing to like about Gus, so why should we care? Director Jean-Baptiste Andrea conjures some nice images and uses some good ideas. The opening moonlit scene, the little girl's perspective from the swing and the animated description of the plan are all quite good, but often goes too far stylistically, for example his breaking the 180 degree rule constantly in the first act which serves only to disorientate and annoy. The plot is full of twists which is normal for a film like this, but none really stick, aside from perhaps the closing. The rest just keeps getting more and more ridiculous as it goes on. In all, Big Nothing is a mixed bag with an ironic title, one of those films you watch and then immediately forget about. The Ice Harvest did a better job at this kind of thing and that was no masterpiece either. Let's hope that Pegg and Schwimmer's Run Fatboy Run fares better than this. In the meantime, if you want black comedy, watch Very Bad Things instead.

Have you seen the trailer for this movie? Odds are, if you have, that you already seen the best bits. You'll probably have high hopes that the banter will be even wittier in the rest of the movie. You'll probably expect to see a bit more of Natasha McElhone or Alice Eve. You'll probably even expect moments of uncontrollable laughter. Great expectations indeed but alas "The Big Nothing" comes nowhere close to fulfilling them. There were less than a handful times that the audience laughed during this movie and even then it wasn't the whole cinema. The humour ranges from quirky to slapstick but never hits the mark on any of it. It's a movie that wants to be funny, serious, gory and surprising but it all comes across as "bland-yet-desperate". It's not the actors' faults as all give performances that are demanded of them but they should really have known better after reading the script. The problem with this movie is that it should never have been made in the first place. There's nothing innovative, new, exciting, funny, daring or even entertaining about it. You've seen all the crazy dialogue, double-crossing and attempts at plot twists before and seen them done better too. There's even a desperate attempt at the end of the movie to up the laugh count by showing one out-take as the credits start to roll! Yes, that's correct - one out-take. It's not even a good one. If you like you're comedies to have no laughs and your dramas to have no tension then you might like this but I failed to enjoy it from start to finish.