There’s a certain kind of comedy that fizzles at the box-office but finds a happy life on cable-TV and home video. These are usually low-wattage pictures that rely on a couple of performances that translates well to the small screen.
I don’t know how “The Man” will do in theaters, but I suspect it will pick up a following on DVD. This is an extremely mild comedy that strictly follows the tired blueprint of the mismatched-buddy movie, but it’s got a couple of good actors in it.
Meek dental-supplies salesman Andy (Eugene Levy) journeys from Milwaukee to Detroit to give a speech at a conference. While innocently sitting at a diner, he is mistaken for the buyer in an undercover sting set up by Detroit’s nastiest federal agent, Vann (Samuel L. Jackson).
Meet the mismatch. In order to set things right, Vann now has to drag Andy all over town because the bad guys (gun-runners, if you want to know) think Andy’s a big-money customer. Andy, of course, just wants to floss.
The film basically hammers away at its polar opposite characters: Andy is friendly, geeky and talks incessantly, Vann is angry, slick, and tired of listening to Andy. Andy is also flatulent. Hey, it’s a Hollywood comedy. The sixth commandment is “Thou Shalt Have Fart Jokes,” and this movie complies.
Samuel Jackson has done this kind of role enough times to know it in his sleep. For Eugene Levy, a comic treasure from the days of “SCTV” and more recently the “American Pie” movies and Christopher Guest’s improv comedies (“A Mighty Wind”), the chance to stretch out in a leading role is rare.
The material is so sketchy that Levy certainly isn’t at his best, although he has a few signature moments. He carries off the movie’s funniest single scene, an undercover moment when Andy has to boss Vann around for the benefit of the bad guys.
The final joke (a variation on the ending of the famous stage farce “The Front Page”) is a good one, but there’s quite a bit of slack time in the movie’s 83 minutes. That’s not nearly enough to justify spending $9.50 at the mall for a ticket.
But a couple of bucks on video?
Yeah, maybe.
“The Man” H
Wait for the video: The buddy-mismatch movie returns, this time with Samuel L. Jackson as a tough Detroit cop and Eugene Levy as a meek dental-products salesman caught in an undercover mix-up. Too few laughs mixed into the slack time.
Rated: PG-13 rating is for violence, subject matter, language.
Now showing: Everett 9, Galaxy 12, Loews at Alderwood, Marysville 14, Mountlake 9, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place 11, Woodinville 12, Cascade
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