Script Review: BIG TROUBLE: written by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone

(01/19/01)

NOTE: The screenplays we review are often in development and may experience many rewrites, some could end up being completely different than what is reviewed here. It is our hope that our reviews generate more interest in the film. Thank you.

BIG TROUBLE, written by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone (based on the novel by Dave Barry), has one of the best setups of recent memory. It ranks up there with the single best setup in the last ten years: David Baldaccis criminal-behind-two-way-glass hes-witnessing-the-President-murder-someone) opening to ABSOLUTE POWER.

In BIG TROUBLE two high school kids, Matt and Andrew, have arrived at the house of Jenny Herk to "kill" her. At their school you are assigned a person you must squirt with a watergun and they call it "Kill." Jennys father, Arthur, works for a company whose ostensible reason for being is construction, but in fact they are accumulating weapons and money to mount a military takeover in Cuba once good ol Castro is dead. Arthur has stolen money from the operation, the guys arent too happy about this, and theyve sent in two hit men from New Jersey (Henry and Leonard) to take him out. And they just happen to arrive the night the two high school kids are there to "kill" Jenny.

Matt and Andrew bust into the house with their very realistic gun as the bad guys with the real gun take a shot at Arthur. Arthur avoids the bullet. Jennys mom, Anna, thinks Matt has fired the shot and bravely defends her daughter -- by beating the snot out of him.

The Herks maid, Nina, whose toes were just recently molested by her boss, sees a scary-looking Arthur running toward her upstairs room and, thinking she is about to be raped, jumps out the window.

While running across the lawn she collides with Leonard, who is trying to leave before the cops arrive. Leonards partner Henry is about to take care of Nina when Puggy (didnt I mention him?), a homeless man living in a tree outside the Herk house, drops from his abode and saves Nina by jumping on top of Henry and taking his rifle from him.

Henry and Leonard get away. Puggy takes Nina into his tree house. The cops finally arrive: Monica Ramirez and Walter Kramitz, an overzealous bodybuilder who has watched COPS one too many times (he dives into the house commando-style and is disappointed when he cant arrest anyone).

When the dust finally settles everyone involved comes to realize Matt was playing a game and it was all a mistake, but, from the bullet that traveled neatly through almost the entire house, someone did take a shot at Arthur. Hes mum as to why (not even his wife knows what he really does for a living).

And of course theres the most important development: Anna-the-unhappy-wife meets Matts father, Eliot, who is our main character and narrator. Sparks fly and you know this will not be the end to their relationship.

This is just the tip of the iceberg to this cast of characters. Theres also two Russian immigrants who sell missiles and other weapons from a bar; a pair of inept criminals named Snake and Eddie; FBI agents who strut under the Special Executive Order 768-04 and take no sh*t; a crotch-sniffing dog; twin security guards that do nothing right; a coterie of smug lawyers; and a fat, poisonous toad -- bufo marinus -- that sits on the dogs food dish and dines on its Kibbles.

In the center of all this is a suitcase-bomb that everyone thinks looks like a garbage disposal.

BIG TROUBLE is a sprawling, Miami-set, chaotic, chance-encounters black comedy with its hands in a lot previous films and others work.

Its steeped deep in Carl Hiaasen territory. Its so Hiaasen-like that the only person who could have done it better would have been Carl himself. Theres also plenty of Elmore Leonard and Coen brothers present here.

Ramsey and Stone seem to have taken Barrys book and stuck close to it. Even copying his prose straight into the script. This works for the most part because Barry writes funny dialogue and shows us a droll, skewed version of Miami. But also backfires, too. Eliot has extensive voice-over narration here. And it feels like its present only to connect the dots for the audience. If a voice-over isnt about who a person is -- such as in TAXI DRIVER -- it can become boring quick and in this case we have Eliot talking for half a page at a time. Eliots voice-over also has the problem of not being very entertaining. Voice-over gives a comedy script great possibilities because you get the audiences attention for a few minutes, can say anything you want, and not have to worry about the consequences. Strangely, the with-it screenwriters misfire and miss the opportunity.

The pleasure of BIG TROUBLE doesnt come from its meant-to-be-ridiculous, rushing-head-on plot, but from its amusing, quirky characters and imagining the actors who will embody the roles.

Barry Sonnenfeld directed this movie. And I can only think of one reason why: after the massive disaster that was WILD WILD WEST Barry wanted to get back to the movie that really set the course of his career (GET SHORTY). But he might have tried too hard and went to a piece of material that borrowed too much from what GET SHORTY was based on. BIG TROUBLE and SHORTY have so much in common -- and the two films will share cast members -- that TROUBLE could almost be considered a sequel.

The happenstance plot, the ensemble group of weirdoes and lowlifes worming around one another to get ahead, the airport as the middle ground where all the characters converge, even the setting. SHORTY starts out in Miami and heads off to Hollywood.

Ramsey and Stone keep things simple and paint the characters with enough muted tones to hold them back from being farcical. And keep the script free from the "Wacky Character Syndrome" so many of these types of ensemble black comedies fall victim to. The best of the bunch here are Snake and Eddie. They may be the millionth take on dumb criminals digging themselves into a deeper hole than they know, but Snake has such a fierce hate for the world, and his impotent struggle to be more than just a moron stuck in a dead end is so funny to read, that he burns brighter than most of his predecessors.

The characters in this piece are like longtime residents in a nuthouse; they have become so accustomed to the nutty behavior that it is only the commonplace and the norm that makes them think twice.

Dave Barry doesnt portray Miami as the center of the world. More so, the end of it. In this Miami you can buy a missile at your corner bar, everyone is a gun-nut ready to blast away, and the people are so inane the radio shows feature callers arguing the same exact point with the host not for minutes or hours but for days.

Sonnenfeld has slapped together a colorful cast as he always does. He seems to stumble, though, just as you think hes triumphed.

I think the first mistake was casting Tim Allen as Eliot. Tim surprised me in the immensely likable GALAXY QUEST, but the role should probably have gone to someone like George Clooney or Bruce Willis.

Dennis Farina, who was in SHORTY, will play Henry. And, Im sure, no offense to the man, act as hes done his whole career -- whether playing a criminal or a cop -- and make the character dull and bumptious.

Janeane Garofalo is going to tackle the role of female police officer Monica Ramirez. Obviously not what the writers had in mind. And basically a waste of her considerable talent. Casting Janeane was way too safe a bet and I think going out and finding an up-and-comer -- the way, say, MONEY TRAIN did with Jennifer Lopez -- would have been a lot more fun.

In the most egregious casting Heavy D (the former rapper) and Omar Epps (JUICE, IN TOO DEEP) will play the two FBI agents who are like Mulder and Scully mixed with Andy Sipowicz. They dont look the part and I cant picture Heavy D doing the agents harried, frantic race in the end or their smiling-while-stomping authority when they first arrive on the scene.

Sonnenfeld did get a few things right: Tom Sizemore plays Snake and Stanley Tucci plays Arthur. Both men are perfectly cast and I think this will allow Sizemore and Tucci to give their most effective performances in years. Tucci has been in small movies no ones seen lately. And Sizemore never really expanded on the promise of films like TRUE ROMANCE, HEAT and NATURAL BORN KILLERS.

Jason Lee, surely to be bearded, takes on the role of Puggy. I didnt see Jason in the role, but having him in your cast is always a plus. The one problem is that Lee is best when hes apoplectic (as in when hes yelling "Not f**king likely!" in CHASING AMY) and Puggy is a shuffling, quiet dope who gets involved in the above tangled morass because he falls in love with Nina and happens to be good at lifting things.

Johnny Knoxville, MTVs bad-boy stuntman, is listed as portraying "Justin Hobert." There was no Justin in the draft I read. I hope Johnny can act and quit his show. So he doesnt have to dump feces on himself to make a living (he should become a critic: its just as stinky, dirty and silly, but not as physically harmful).

BIG TROUBLE cant come up with another jolly good set piece that rises to the level of the openings untamed madcap hilarity. But it does get more right then it does wrong (the relationship between Eliot and Anna is better than it has any right to be, considering they fall instantly into lust and have almost no time to even speak), and it features an engagingly funny study in stupidity coupled with chance and even more stupidity. It doesnt break any barriers and its not going to win any awards (and who says it has to?). On the purely give-and-receive scale BIG TROUBLE offered a comedy and made me laugh now and again -- and it did it without gross-out gag jokes (and nowadays that means something). Its ending was a little too action-movie-ish for my tastes (in view of the fact that until the third act the movie could have been a good, mid-budget, non-studio comedy) and the ending-ending a little too pat and satisfied with itself. However, when I got up and walked away I did it with fond thoughts. So, in the end, Id say it works.

For the film itself (and though Im not sure, I think this script was rewritten) Id bet dollars to donuts Barry fancies it up with all the visual trickery he learned from the Coen brothers and makes this into a slick, amiable movie -- as all his others have been.

The one with the most to offer here is, in fact, Dave Barry. I hope he broadens his horizons a bit for his next project, but Ill be buying his next book even if he doesnt.

With that in mind you might want to skip the flick altogether, make yourself a drink, lie down, and read the book.

People still do that...right?

-- Darwin Mayflower.