Mr Deeds - stars Adam Sandler, Winona Ryder, John Turturro

Adam Sandler, for me, is an acquired taste.  Much like Jim Carrey, you either love him or hate him.  Jim I love, Adam I can't stand.  Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore were excrutiating for me, The Wedding Singer was copable and Big Daddy also had its moments - baring in mind the latter two in that list displayed a very refrained Sandler.  I've seen the man interviewed and he talks like he's six years old in real life, why his movies would be any different I really don't know.  So how is Mr Deeds any different?

Well, it isn't really.  Sandler plays Longfellow Deeds who happens to inherit 41 billion dollars as the result of being the only relative of a just-passed businessman.  He heads to New York to claim his inheritance, and while the company execs scheme to do Deeds out of the money, Deeds just goes out and enjoys himself.  An eager reporter (Ryder) then jumps at the chance to get some goss on Deeds for her tabloid TV show boss using the small town lineage line to get in his good books.  Meanwhile, the butler is "...belly belly sneaky sir."

The butler (Turturro) makes this flick, without him I don't think it would have a leg to stand on.  A classic cameo from John McEnroe is also priceless and in fact should have been used more heavily.  Go Mac!  Sandler is Sandler, again refrained from his Billy/Happy roles but still showing infantile tendancies by pummelling anyone that crosses his path and playing jokes on the rest.  Sandler is also happy (no pun intended, lol) to continue the little guy in a big scary place with no friends and all the big guys trying to do him over theme, its almost a carbon copy of Billy Madison except he's in an apartment with a Butler instead of the 1st grade with a teacher.  Lazy.  Ryder is another story altogether, she obviously wasn't given much to work with here and where she'll excels with post-teen-angst roles, the cutesy thing just doesn't fit and as a result, her part suffered.

Impressive above all else in this, and in fact every other DVD I've seen so far, is the interactive menus etc that its designed with.  Some fantasic animations, a huge list of making of's and a short outtakes reel that could've been longer, plus a whole bunch more.  But the look of the menus and the segues between each is really well put together, if nothing else this scores points on its own.  Kudos.

I tell you though, I laughed, admittedly I'd had a couple of beers but yeah, there are some very funny moments in this.  The butler, again, did most of it, and you will have seen a lot of the funny stuff in the previews that have slammed TV since this movie's release, but it definately has its moments.  Can't say I hated it.  3 stars.

Urban Legend - stars Rebecca Gayheart, Jared Leto, Alicia Witt

Yet another from the slasher collection.  I have recalled the great War Film glut a few times, well Scream started the slasher glut.  This was one of the better to come out of that.  I originally saw this on the big screen and hadn't seen it since.  Before I go on, the sequal sucks ass and you'd be better off with rusty pliers on fingernails with a warm six pack.

Pendleton Uni is the subject of urban legend, rumours continually spread throughout the generations of a mass murder that took place some years back by one of the teachers.  Then people start getting dead, all in the theme of an urban legend.    But whose doing it?  Fantastic, let the blood flow!

The one place this film falls down for mine is the fact that even though the murderer is using urban legends to kill people, it isn't written into the story that our budding detective uses that information to try and think ahead of the killer.  I think that would've spiced it up nicely.  Still, there's some good little jumpy bits and a couple of nice cameos from Joshua Jackson (keep an ear out for when he gets in the car), Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund is cunningly cast as the Folklore Professor; and somehow I think Tara Reid's appearance was simply for eye candy, but you can't argue that sex sells.

Not as good as Scream, Final Destination and Idle Hands, much better than Urban Legend 2 and Valentine, 3 stars.

Reindeer Games - stars Ben Affleck, Gary Senise, Charlize Theron

Top flick this, a straight-to-video gem that was appaulingly ignored by most as far as I can tell.  Affleck in a macho, blokey role?  Yeah well that's always suspect, but he brings this one off ok.  The Sum Of All Fears on the other hand...

Rudy shares a prison cell with Nick, Nick has a penpal romance with a woman whom he will hook up with on his release.  Rudy and Nick are due to be released on the same day.  Rudy is cynical of the whole relationship with a girl he's never met deal, but wishes Nick luck.  Things go awry when, during a canteen fracas, Nick is killed.  Ain't prison a bitch!  Against even his own better judgement, Rudy poses as Nick on his release with a fleeting romance with the lucious Ashley (Theron) but get loads more than he bargained for.  And yes, Affleck does suffer under these conditions, he's just not tough for mine, but he does a more than adequate job here.  Think about his role in Good Will Hunting and then handing him a gun, that'd be close.

Its a whole bunch of action and intensity mixed with some well placed black humour.  And as the stakes get higher you really do start to wonder whose heading up this band of brigands.  Gary Sinise as the archetypal bad guy is superb, Charlize as the beautiful damsel in distress is also brilliant, as well as the support cast; Dennis Farina as the casino owner plays a standout role.

Guns and mayhem and smart mouths, its all enjoyable and can't really recommend this one enough to those who like this sort of thing.  This is also John Frankenheimer's follow-up to Ronin, so you know you're in for a slick production before it even starts.  Thumbs up everywhere, 4 stars.

BH