Directed by: Jordan Roberts
Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Chris O’Dowd, Lizzy Caplan, and Ron Perlman
Plot: Two feuding brothers try to get a sex tape back from a former movie star when they find out the girl is his daughter.
Frankie trying to write
Review:
Frankie (Charlie Hunnam) is an aspiring writer. He lives out in the middle of nowhere in Death’s Valley. He is trying to escape his past which includes his pregnant fiancé admitting to an affair with the Best Man, who is also the father, on their wedding day. This leads to him slapping her and then vomiting on her. Worst yet, his director-wannabe older brother, Bruce, uploads it on youtube for everyone to see. It gets over a million hits. This is an odd role for Charlie Hunnam. Between his role in Green Street Hooligans and his role on Sons of Anarchy, he is developing a more than decent tough guy persona. Frankie on the other hand is very timid and kind of nervous, even though he still has the physique and swagger of his SoA character, Jax Teller. This makes him charming in his own way, and definitely shows that as an actor he is growing.
He is asked to come home by his guilt-inducing mother for his brother’s “graduation” from rehab. This is the same brother that put up his embarrassing wedding video. Bruce (played by the great Chris O’Dowd) has a weird ego. He is very self-involved, but he truly thinks he is doing everyone a favor when he tries to include them in his movie making, if that is what you call it. As kids, Bruce would prank and torture Frankie while videotaping it, and now he kind of captures people in personal, casual moments over the course of the day and tries to pass it off as his own guerilla filmmaking. It doesn’t help that he met a former movie star while in rehab who wants to make movies with him. The night of his graduation, Frankie stumbles across a drunk girl on a bicycle dressed in lingerie as she runs away from her boyfriend, who turned out to be gay. The two of them try to have sex, but Frankie has trouble performing. Bruce captures it all on video and decides to start spreading it around.
Frankie fights Bruce
The movie is marketed as a weirdo, bonkers comedy. It looks like it should be a laugh a minute Hangover-style misadventure. It is only really half the movie, and while all those parts are very kooky, it is not terribly funny. It is charming, light-hearted, and entertaining, but I never really laughed. The other half is a family dramedy about a guy dealing with how his brother keeps publishing all of his mistakes and misdeeds. It is bad enough he has to deal with the problems anyway, now everyone recognizes him as THAT guy.
In a very memorable cameo, Ron Perlman plays Bruce’s former cell mate, Phil, except Phil isn’t Phil anymore. Now, he is Phyllis. There is part of me that wants to say that Perlman disappeared into the role, but that upper lip is hard to disguise. If he can’t do it with the Hellboy make-up, he isn’t doing it here. Regardless, he is fantastic in the role. His voice reminds me of Mike Myers’ Coffee Talk host from Saturday Night Live, and he is a little temperamental when it comes to people not respecting his sexual reassignment. Nevertheless, I am sure Hunnam and Perlman had to deal with some jeering on the set of Sons of Anarchy for slow dancing together.
Ron Perlman like you never thought you’d see him
3,2,1….Frankie Goes Boom is a nice light feature, but it isn’t terribly memorable. It has a few good moments, but it really needed to amp up the humor instead of just amping up the wackiness.
Rating: 7/10