`ASSOCIATE' COULD USE SOME LOOSENING UP MUCH EARLIER.Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic Just when you think Whoopi Goldberg's latest alleged comedy, ``The Associate,'' is going the mirthless way of her last couple of groaners, ``Bogus'' and ``Eddie,'' the darn thing gets funny. And stays funny. But you still keep wondering, where was this movie an hour ago? Built around the season's favorite theme of wronged women getting the better of their male tormentors, ``The Associate'' is set in the comically promising world of big-money investments. But, of course, coming as it does from a Disney division, this movie's approach to corporate greed is not the humorous one of merciless criticism but the fake triumphal one of ``gimme gim·me Informal Contraction of give me. adj. Slang Demanding material things or especially money; acquisitive: today's gimme society; tired of gimme letters. n. my share!'' Though the movie boasts boilerplate A phrase or body of text used verbatim in different documents such as a signature at the end of a letter. Boilerplate is widely used in the legal profession as many paragraphs are used over and over in agreements with little modification or no modification. feminist rhetoric to burn, it's significant that all of two lines are devoted to discussing affirmative action. Donald Trump, in a cameo appearance as himself, says more - and more about director Donald Petrie's reluctance to play the premise for its best, meanest potential. Of course, Goldberg's Laurel Ayres never needed help from anybody. The sharpest financial analyst at Wall Street's venerable Manchester and Co., she's a no-play type whose job dedication inevitably yields big dividends. So, quite naturally, the airheaded pretty boy Frank (Tim Daly) gets the next promotion by closing a big deal in a strip club. Livid, Laurel quits and tries to open her own shop. But no potential clients want to alienate the powerful Manchester by going with her. And besides, she's just a woman, so what could she know? Frustrated and on the verge On the Verge (or The Geography of Yearning) is a play written by Eric Overmyer. It makes extensive use of esoteric language and pop culture references from the late nineteenth century to 1955. of bankruptcy, Laurel invents an imaginary male partner, Robert Cutty Cut´ty a. 1. Short; as, a cutty knife; a cutty sark s>. n. 1. A short spoon. 2. A short tobacco pipe. 3. A light or unchaste woman. . High-powered investors try the reclusive re·clu·sive adj. 1. Seeking or preferring seclusion or isolation. 2. Providing seclusion: a reclusive hut. genius' advice (filtered through Laurel, of course), and make big bucks. Meanwhile, Frank's mousey mous·ey adj. Variant of mousy. Adj. 1. mousey - infested with mice mousy 2. mousey - of something having a drab pale brown color resembling a mouse; "a mousy brownish-grey color"; "mousy hair"; secretary Sally (Dianne Wiest) comes over to Laurel's side, proving herself an organizational genius and deft at helping keep the Cutty illusion afloat amid increasing media scrutiny. Lots of situation there, but unless the line ``Baby, if I was premenstrual premenstrual /pre·men·stru·al/ (pre-men´stroo-al) occurring before menstruation. pre·men·stru·al adj. Of or occurring in the period just before menstruation. you'd be dead'' floats your boat, there's nary a laugh to be gotten out of this whole elaborate setup. Things don't really get rolling until circumstances force Laurel to produce a living, breathing Cutty - which she does with the help of every desperate comedy's favorite accessory, a lovable drag queen neighbor, and a few tons of Oscar-winning makeup artist Greg Cannom's latex. Goldberg comes out looking like a waxworks wax·work n. 1. The art of modeling in wax. 2. A figure made of wax, especially a life-size wax effigy of a famous person. 3. waxworks (used with a sing. or pl. George Washington that you can't believe would fool anybody. Still, the Cutty impersonation Impersonation Patroclus wore the armor of Achilles against the Trojans to encourage the disheartened Greeks. [Gk. Lit.: Iliad] Prisoner of Zenda, The tricks every rich dope in the movie, and oddly enough the film's funniest scene involves Bebe Neuwirth's sultry stockbroker's attempted seduction of rubber-faced Cutty. Things take an enjoyably sicker turn as Laurel realizes that even an imaginary man is getting in her way, and decides he's got to go by any means necessary By any means necessary is a translation of a phrase coined by the French intellectual Jean Paul Sartre in his play Dirty Hands. I was not the one to invent lies: they were created in a society divided by class and each of us inherited lies when we were born. . But by the time Nick Thiel's script gets to these spots, most people's minds will be hopelessly tied up in speculation about just how many securities trading laws this slow-building scenario has violated. Still, as ``The First Wives Club'' has proved, never underestimate the entertainment value of women plotting revenge. And Goldberg and Wiest do it expertly, the former with more emotion and restraint than we're used to seeing her express, the latter with her patented, sweet-smile-with-gritted-teeth comic resentfulness. But good as the actresses are in it, ``The Associate'' would have benefited if they'd cut loose a little earlier, instead of so doggedly insisting on a class sisterhood sisterhood: see monasticism. act. They're just ripping off ``Mrs. Doubtfire'' (and ``Working Girl,'' and ``9 to 5'' ...), after all. A few raunchier laughs up front would've really paid off. THE FACTS The film: ``The Associate'' (PG-13; language, nudity). The stars: Whoopi Goldberg, Dianne Wiest, Eli Wallach, Tim Daly, Bebe Neuwirth. Behind the scenes: Directed by Donald Petrie, written by Nick Thiel. Produced by Frederic Golchan, Patrick Markey and Adam Leipzig. Released by Hollywood Pictures. Running time: One hour, 54 minutes. Playing: Citywide. Our rating: Two Stars. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion