OVER COOKED ‘HOME FRIES’
(reviewed on ppv on Thursday, June 3rd, 1999)
If you have ever wondered who exactly wins those film festival screenplay contests, look no further than to Drew Barrymore and Luke Wilson’s latest about small time love and…Apache helicopters.
The writer of this ridiculously insane script is X-Files scribe Vince Gilligan himself. Noted, he wrote some of the best episodes for Mulder and Scully, including ‘Small Potatoes’ and ‘Bad Blood’ (Blood starring Luke Wilson as a small town sheriff). Here though, he’s out of his league. Way out. So Vince? Stick to television.
I’m not sure if I should even go into the mangled plot. Realistically, the only way this script ever won a contest is either because the other ones reallllly sucked, or they liked the originality in this. Luke Wilson and Jake Busey play army helicopter pilots who are involved with something bad in the opening. Accidentally, the headphones at a local burger joint pick up their transmission, so they have to go to the burger place and see if they know anything. They don’t. But Luke Wilson is forced by his big brother to get a job flipping burgers just in case.
Drew Barrymore plays a pregnant worker who Luke eventually develops a relationship with. The rest of the film is…well I don’t want to give anything away. I will give this out: don’t watch this movie.
Vince Gilligan- in ‘The X-Files’ anyway- writes weird but smart, funny, energetic, fun. Here it’s weird but stupid, ridiculous, not really fun, just silly.
There are no laugh out loud scenes, no tender moments, no surprises that you care about…at all. I’m seriously wondering if Vince had a friend on that screen play contest board, and if so he may also be a big shot producer…because how in the hell did this shit get made? Maybe Drew Barrymore liked the script, and Luke Wilson showed up so he could have a little tete-a-tet with ol’ Drew, but seriously, do you think the execs at whatever studio greenlit this read the treatment and said, “Yes!” * (out of ****)
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