Sleeper Cell: A Life Less Ordinary (1997)

Feb 052010

mainpic A movie with a twelve million dollar budget with an all-star director and his all-star writer leading an all-star cast grossing under five million dollars is the very definition of sleeper. If ever there were a movie that you should’ve seen but you didn’t, it’s The Genius Danny Boyle’s A Life Less Ordinary. And don’t you feel ashamed? After all, The Genius Danny Boyle turned down his shot at horror immortality by declining the offer to direct Alien: Resurrection to instead helm the much lower profile screenplay by John Hodge (writer of The Genius Danny Boyle‚Äôs hits Trainspotting and Shallow Grave). Alien 4 ultimately fell to French master Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who will no doubt be featured in a future review) who made the best movie he could (according to him), and while he was celebrated as a conquering hero in France, American audiences shied away from his particular brand of space/horror/comedy.

A Life Less Ordinary isn‚Äôt the TYPICAL, typical sleeper; it was heavily publicized and highly promoted by the studio, including even a pretty brilliant Michel Gondry music video for the original Beck song “Deadweight.” It‚Äôs a less typical, typical sleeper; people just didn‚Äôt like it very much. I maintain it‚Äôs because it was aimed at the wrong market. The movie was originally billed as a Tarantino-style hipster romance. It‚Äôs nothing like that. It‚Äôs more a feel-good fantasy that should grab fans of movies like The Fifth Element or the aforementioned Jean-Pierre Jeunet‚Äôs Amelie. It‚Äôs a goofy, happy, comedy love story. NOT Pulp Fiction.

But this article isn’t a referendum on studio decision-making. I hate to use words like “charming” or “delightful” when describing a love story, because they seem to come pre-charged with undertones of “underwhelming” and “don’t-expect-too-much.” So let’s go with “funny-as-hell” and “awesome.” 1997 gave us the Star Wars Special Edition reset alongside other blockbusters like The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Men in Black. All in all, it was a pretty good year for movies, Con Air notwithstanding. So who the hell knew what to do with a movie about 2 matchmaker angels threatened with earthly transfiguration if they failed in their assignment to get the recently laid-off janitor and the billionaire heiress to fall in love.

So … About that…

The two angels, (Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo) whose job it is to introduce future spouses to each other, have had a bad run of divorces. They are heaven-sent from a retro 50s/60s style police station by Chief of Police, Gabriel (played by Cheers fan-favorite Dan Hedaya who, coincidentally, is also in Alien 4). Their new case is a toughy, and if they fail, they will be punished by being forced back into mortality.

The couple?

Ewan McGregor is the happy-go-unlucky janitor, Robert, who is replaced by a floor-sweeping, (coincidentally R2D2-looking) robot janitor. Later that same day, he’s dumped by his girlfriend in favor of her aerobics instructor, and for the coup de grace, the angels show up incognitus to repossess his car and home and couch and, well all of it.¬†Cameron Diaz is the billionaire’s malcontent daughter, Celine Naville, complete with zebra print gloves and blue cashmere blazer. She resents her father (as all billionaire children should) and just recently (though probably accidentally) shot her latest suitor in the face with a .44 caliber revolver.

Other electro-job theft:
With the increasing use of home robots like automatic vacuums, the soon-to-be-popular automatic lawn mower, and the dramatic rise in production-based robotics (especially in relation to oceanic oil platforms), more and more jobs are being taken from humans and given to machines. While it may be more ideal to give war-specific duties to radio controlled robots (i.e. the Predator drones in Iraq and Afghanistan), the idea of the world envisioned by Kurt Vonnegut in his prophetic 1952 novel Player Piano still strikes most people as just plain creepy.

Extended List of Players:
Robert ‚Äì Ewan McGregor (The Island)
Celine ‚Äì Cameron Diaz (The Mask, Very Bad Things)
O‚ÄôReilly ‚Äì Holly Hunter (Thirteen, The Incredibles)
¬†¬†¬†¬† Matchmaker Angel #1
Jackson ‚Äì Delroy Lindo (Congo, Romeo Must Die)
¬†¬†¬†¬† Matchmaker Angel #2
Mr. Naville ‚Äì Ian Holm (Alien, Bless the Child)
¬†¬†¬†¬† Said billionaire
Mayhew ‚Äì Ian McNeice (Top Secret!, White Noise)
¬†¬†¬†¬† Said billionaire‚Äôs butler/assistant
Elliott ‚Äì Stanley Tucci (Maid in Manhattan, The Terminal)
¬†¬†¬†¬† Celine‚Äôs most recent suitor and one hell of a good dentist
Todd Johnson – Maury Chaykin (Blindness, Harriet the Spy)
¬†¬†¬†¬† A ‚Äúregular man‚Äù who befriends Robert (also has a barking best friend who hasn‚Äôt been the same since the war)

The romantic plan? A kidnapping!

Stockholm Syndrome:
Named after a 6-day bank robbery/hostage situation in August 1973 in BINGBINGBING! you got it: STOCKHOLM, Sweden. This syndrome is characterized by victims of hostagery becoming emotionally attached to their captors. Though rare, afflictees display defensive attitudes when their captors are punished. In the extreme case of Jaycee Lee Dugard, after having been raped and held captive for over 18 years, Dugard described her assailant as good with kids. Jaycee Dugard was just rescued this past August after her 1991 abduction and though she was held in a so-called ‚Äúsecret backyard‚Äù surrounded by a privacy fence and tarp, referred to the kidnapper as a ‚Äúgreat man.‚Äù

So Robert storms back into the offices of Mr. Naville with an attitude and no plan at all. Naville is having a talk with Celine, informing her that she will have to work for her money now. Robert bursts through the door carrying a jani-bot. He demands his job back, and is immediately dealt with by a pack of fatty security guards. In the office melee that ensues, Celine kicks a gun to Robert who uses it to get away from the guards and then to shoot Mr. Naville in the leg. He kidnaps Celine and drives away with her into the countryside to try and figure something out while the line between who is directing the kidnapping begins to blur. And as the 2 angels (again, in disguise in disguise in disguise) are hired by Naville to track down Robert you wonder, is their plan working ingeniously or failing spectacularly.

Top 5 Wacky Syndromes!! (these are all real by the way‚Ä¶)
5 ‚Äì Exploding Head Syndrome
Sufferers hear intermittent explosion-like noises in their heads, usually just after having fallen asleep.
4 ‚Äì Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (aka Micropsia)
Sufferers will see people and objects as being much smaller than they actually are. So named because of the belief that Lewis Carroll may have been afflicted.
3 ‚Äì Walking Corpse Syndrome
Sufferers believe they have lost body parts or are in fact dead and can feel and smell their flesh rotting; has been linked to schizophrenia and cocaine use.
2 ‚Äì Genital Retraction Syndrome
Sufferers believe that their genitals are either shrinking or being retracted into their bodies; more common among cultures with widespread belief in witchcraft.
#1! ‚Äì Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Syndrome
Sufferers react violently to loud noises by screaming, jumping, and wildly gesticulating. Even more interesting, sufferers seem compelled to obey loudly spoken, authoritative commands, going so far as to attack loved ones if sternly directed to do so.

This week‚Äôs underappreciated actor of the week:
Maury Chaykin!
One of my personal favorites. For his portrayal of the first town sheriff in the great SyFy series Eureka to his great character work in Cutthroat Island and Mousehunt. And his role in the standout episode of season two of Boston Legal, I salute him for being Chaykin, not stirred. (ouch)

Memorable Line:
‚ÄúOh, and that‚Äôs all I am to you, isn‚Äôt it? The latest kidnapper. A lifestyle accessory. And if it doesn‚Äôt work, it doesn‚Äôt matter, ‚Äòcause you can always get another one.‚Äù¬†¬† ‚Äì Robert

Standout Scene:
The angels are doing their best to put Robert and Celine into situations that might spark that initial bit of love-ness, and have come to a point of desperation ‚Äì the plan is to put one of them into a deadly situation in the hopes that the other will abandon logic and attempt a rescue. I hate to give anything away (to the point where I‚Äôm hopelessly vague), but set to the incredible song ‚ÄúLeave‚Äù by R.E.M. and featuring the equally incredible trademark camera work from The Genius Danny Boyle, the ‚ÄúJeopardy Scene‚Äù stands out as the kind of movie-making that belongs in an Oscar montage reserved for the dead-guy part of the Oscar telecast.

I‚Äôll admit, it can be hard to pump up a romanticomedy, but some of them just do it different. From the great off-pitch but honest actor-sung musical number to the love-poem-writing angels, A Life Less Ordinary definitely does it different. There are a few romaticomedies like John Wayne’s The Queit Man, Adrien Brody’s Dummy and Keir Dullea’s 2001: A Space Odyssey that leave the rom-com genre behind and are just great movies. A Life Less Ordinary is that kind of movie.