The Hudsucker Proxy

The first two-thirds of this movie work very nicely as a cartoonish satire of 1950's business. Too bad it starts to take a melodramatic turn and try to get us to care about Norville...who, like everyone else here, is after all only a cartoon character. Do we really care when Wile E. Coyote has an anvil dropped on his head? Jennifer Jason Leigh tries hard, but can't measure up to Rosalind Russell in "His Girl Friday" or to Kate Hepburn. And though accents don't normally irritate me, hers is atrocious. Still pretty good overall. Would have been much, much better though if the spirit of the first half of the movie had been preserved till the end, and if Leigh hadn't butchered whatever accent she was attempting to mimic. And, unfortunately, it has a hokey /deus ex machina/ resolution (emphasis on the "machina").

This was such a boring movie. It had nothing interesting to convey to the audience viewer(in my 9th grade English class). The acting of a B movie is better than the acting done in this movie. It would have been a perfect type of movie for Chris Elliott or Kevin Nealon. The elevator operator really was fake with that stupid suck-up attitude. This movie really does hudSUCKer.

Whenever bad movies are mentioned in our house, the night we rented this pile of crap from the video store always comes up. Jenifer Jason Leigh is just painful and even Paul Newman looks bored. Have to confess that we fast forwarded the last 15 minutes just to get to the end of the film.

There's one good joke in this film, about musicals. Otherwise it's as arch, smug, and soulless a comedy as could be expected from the Coen brothers, the charm of whose oeuvre entirely escapes me (yes, even *Fargo*). Just because these nerds can claim to be 'auteurs' doesn't mean that what they create is any good. Tim Robbins mugs his way through the central role, but is infinitely more watchable than Jennifer Jason Leigh, whose excruciatingly mannered performance could give anyone a migraine. All the satire about capitalism is overegged, Steve Buscemi puts in a predictable cameo, and the whole experience left me sympathising only with those characters who lost the will to live.

The Coen Brothers, those masters of the twisted, take a look at corporate bureaucracy in "The Hudsucker Proxy". It portrays the board of a New York business appointing a random employee (Tim Robbins) CEO after the original CEO (Charles Durning) commits suicide. They expect the business to then collapse so that they can then collect the last profits, but this guy has his own set of tricks up his sleeve (hint: it's a perfect circle). It's always great to see people poke fun at the corporate world. And set as it is in 1958, this one has the feeling of classic flicks. Aside from the aforementioned cast members, Paul Newman is great as ever as the slimy executive, and Jennifer Jason Leigh is hilarious as a tough gal reporter not letting anything stand in her way while investigating a story. And there's even Ash himself, Bruce Campbell (no mention of boom-sticks here). All in all, a great movie. When it's Waring Hudsucker. Ha!

Wow, what a spectacular example of all surface and no substance. Actors we love and directors we admire come together to create a train wreck of a film. I first saw this as it was running on a cable channel like HBO, in mid-movie, not knowing what it was nor who had produced it. I had to see it from the beginning so I rented it and lasted about 20 minutes before hitting "eject" on the remote. Gaaaa. It's big, it's huge it's loud, and... not the least bit funny, interesting, or believable. Who cares about these characters? I know people who tend to like a certain actor-turned-politician (the one who is running for the presidency in '08) probably will also love this movie. If image is everything, this movie has everything for you. Please let's not make another one of these.

Fitting together screwball-style verbal comedy with Jerry Lewis slapstick is a dangerous proposition, and this Coen Brothers comedy--an expensively stylized Joel Silver production--goes awry from the first scenes. Tim Robbins is a dimwit mailroom boy sent to the head of the class by a scheming executive (Paul Newman), and Jennifer Jason Leigh is the fast-talking reporter who smells a rat. For all the lavish set pieces, for all Carter Burwell's ingenuity with the march music of Aram Khatchaturian (copped from Billy Wilder's ONE, TWO, THREE), the movie has the clammy, Ph.D.-thesis feel of the Coens' MILLER'S CROSSING. Robbins condescends to his goofball character, and Jason Leigh tries on another of her garish accents; only Newman's wry, cigar-puffing understatement scores. (The movie rips off, or quotes, innumerable thirties and forties movies, most prominently MEET JOHN DOE and HIS GIRL FRIDAY.)

This is a bit more than I expect from the Coen brothers. This is truly a big movie. It must have cost a great deal to get to the theaters. There is so much eye candy that usually doesn't exist in their more sparse movies. This doesn't make it bad. It's as if too much detracts a bit from the underlying ideas of characterization. Tim Robbins is used as a caricature. Jennifer Jason-Leigh is a Katherine Hepburn recreation. She even embraces her speech patterns. I know this was an effort to do a parody of one of those fifties gray-flannel-suit movies. It's so over the top. Throw in a little Frank Capra and even Fritz Lang and you have this. The corporate world is seen as an island unto itself and Hudsucker Enterprises is in the center of that world. Forget motivations. These guys call the shots like it's a game. It works sometimes, but sometimes parody become so obvious that it diminishes its own point. Still, this is watchable and creative and deserves some accolades.

An elaborate scheme develops by Paul Newman and some other high class executives to hire a young moron (Tim Robbins) to run their corporation after the head honcho (Charles Durning) commits suicide. Newman and his fellow cronies do this so the company's stock will go down so the bigwigs can buy the stocks at a fraction of their original costs. Of course this could mean millions for those near the top of the corporation. Reporter Jennifer Jason Leigh suspects that something is not quite right and gets close to Robbins, but her plan may backfire as she strangely begins to have feelings for him. Very disappointing dud from the Coen Brothers that just never does generate any interest from its potentially promising premise. Robbins and Leigh are too annoying to help and Newman acts like the only performer with any talent. Beautiful cinematography and excellent art direction get overshadowed by confusing techniques and scattered messages. 2 stars out of 5.

This may be the closest the Coens ever came to making a movie, you know, for kids! Not for all kids, maybe, but still. The use of classic slapstick humour, the enchanting settings (even if they are in a city, inside a giant building and a factory) and this endlessly optimistic (sure, he nearly hits rock bottom near the end, but a happy ending can not be far away) Norville Barnes make this a truly exuberant, over the top event, one that could be enjoyed by all. Or so you would think, but actually, the role played by Jennifer Jason Leigh became pretty annoying at moments (as did some others, like that elevator man), even if she did a great job of what she was supposed to do. At the heart of things, there is a sympathetic and heartfelt story perhaps, but it hardly came across with all the tomfoolery and what not. Well done, but hardly my cup of tea these days. 6 out of 10.