olivia_sutton | Entries tagged with denis leary

Title: The Ref
Director: Ted Demme
Date: 1994
Studio: Touchstone
Genre: Comedy
Cast: Denis Leary, Kevin Spacey, Judy Davis, Christine Barenski
Format: Color, Widescreen
DVD Format: R1, NTSC

"Great, I hijack my f...ing parents!" -- Gus (Leary)

"From now on the only person who gets to yell is me, Why? Because I have a gun, OK? People with guns can do whatever they want. Married people without guns, for instance, you -- Do not get to YELL! Why? No guns! No guns, no yelling." -- Gus

"Eat, don't annoy me, it's Christmas." -- Connie

"I'm in hell. Connecticut is the fifth ring of hell!" -- Gus

The Ref opens with a series of shots of Christmas in a Connecticut suburb. Everything looks perfect, there's even snow and children looking into shop window displays. But then we meet Caroline and Lloyd Cheshire, who are seeing a marriage counselor. Their squabbling and put downs of each other are so bad they annoy their marriage counselor. We also see a cat burglar who is trying to break into a safe in one of the huge homes in the small town/suburb. The break-in goes wrong -- first he's sprayed with cat urine, then he sets off the alarm, and the cops are alerted.

Gus, as we later learn, is stranded without an getaway car, since his partner was frightened by the alarms and ran off, so he takes a woman hostage in a convenient store, looking for a ride. He, and the Cheshires never expected what would result.

Like all good screwball comedies, from a simple plot - a criminal trying to escape, huge events occur and the film is extremely funny. Most of the film takes place in the Cheshires' house, with a few cutaways to the incompetent police manhunt for the criminal. (For example, the police chief, who iscompetent, finds a surveillance videotape of Gus from the robbery. He shows it to his men once, but is interrupted by a phone call. When he returns, they've recorded a James Stewart movie over the surveillance footage.) The Cheshires, with their bickering, arguing, and put downs, drive Gus nuts. When their extended family arrive for Christmas dinner - the family politics get even worse. Yet, it the midst of the chaos - Gus' presence allows everyone to get things off their chest. When Lloyd, who seems to be the calmest one in the group, finally explodes - it's great. And the honesty, not to mention Gus' prodding, might have oddly enough saved their marriage. One can see Caroline and Gus giving up their "safe and comfortable" life, moving to California, and opening another restaurant (closing their restaurant several years earlier had started a series of events that was now bringing them to brink of divorce). Meanwhile, their son, a budding criminal himself, may have been scared straight by Gus - who honestly tells him he doesn't want that type of life.

The film is laugh out loud funny. The characters seem very real, if a little over the top. The sarcastic dialogue is underscored by the sarcastic and ironic nature of the entire film: this little Connecticut suburb may look perfect, but everyone is hiding secrets, everyone is nasty and mean, and no one treats anyone else with any respect whatsoever. There is a lot of swearing and bad language, and some adult concepts as well. However, the film is brilliant. Denis Leary is incredibly funny, and brings out the best of everyone around him. I have seen The Ref more than twice, usually with many years between seeing it, and every time the film surprises me with it's fresh humor. Also, The Ref has some heart to it, that's extremely unexpected. Caroline and Lloyd are already in marriage counseling - yet Gus, as raw as he may be, is a better marriage counselor for the couple than Dr. Wong, the counselor they see at the beginning of the film. Gus also manages to get everyone in the family to honestly confront the issues they have with each other, rather than quietly ignoring them and pretending to be nice. This truly is a brilliant comedy!

Recommendation: See it! (Not for young children)
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Next Film: Roberta

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Blog for March 21, 2008 -- DVD reviews

Hiya all,

Easter Vigil is TOMORROW and it's snowing today! It's snowing hard and has been all day. And it's not like it's been cold this past week. Actually, over the last couple of weeks I've actually been driving around town with the windows open in my car (under sunny bright blue skies) so go fig?

DVD Reviews

I've finished watching The Job Denis Leary's brilliant cop comedy. It's kinda' like Barney Miller, if you remember that show, in that most of the show takes place at the station house or in the detectives' cars, and it's more about the cops as people rather that solving a crime each week. Not that there aren't crimes, there are, but they take a back seat to the character stuff.

Leary plays an incredibly messed-up cop (detective), which is the type of character he seems to specialise in. Anyways, Leary's character is a pill-popping, alcoholic, smoking mess; with a wife and kids in the 'burbs and girlfriend on the side. Which sounds awful but actually it just works, somehow Leary's very likable anyway. It also doesn't hurt that the entire series is laugh out loud funny.

It's just funny! Darkly comic, yeah, but brilliant. I'd say the best episodes are "Anger" and the last one (with kinda' a give-away title). "Anger" consists of Mike McNeil (Leary's character) being sent to an anger management class. Of course, he thinks the entire thing is total B.S. so on the second day, he manages to, just by talking, start a fight in the anger management class, which turns into a free-for-all, and the police are called in. The last episode is actually really depressing (it ranks up there with the last ep. of Blake's 7), but it's not a guns-blazing end, it's more character stuff that's so gut-wrenching. And it's characters just doing self-destructive stuff that's bad for themselves, but they're so screwed-up they do it anyways. And it's not just Leary's character-- it's everyone around him. Awesome stuff!

Needless to say, since I was pre-ordering the April 1^st releases of Doctor Who (classic) anyway, I ordered Season 1 of Leary's firefighter series, Rescue Me, which I've never seen. Should prove to be interesting.

The other thing I've been watching is Batman. A lot of Batman. I started by stumbling across Batman: The Animated Series on Jetix (Toon Disney's evening/night channel). Now, I had seen Warner Bros. animated Justice League a few years ago on Boomerang or Cartoon Network, and ended-up buying a couple single DVD discs and eventually Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD, so I vaguely knew that Batman: TAS existed, I just hadn't seen it. Anyway, watching Batman occasionally, quickly became watching it daily, and even taping a bit. Then, I started catching Justice League Unlimited on Boomerang, which led to watching The Batman (with a different voice actor, animation style, etc). So, now, of course I'll need to collect all the various versions. Bugger! (Tho', since I do get tired watching too much animé, so I'll spread out my purchases). But here's my low-down on the two I'm watching.

Batman: The Animated Series: OK, Kevin Conway IS Batman! I mean, he's been in what, four? Five? Batman series? And the reason is because he's good! But the rest of the regular (voice) cast is also brilliant. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr, whom I first saw in Remington Steele, is excellent as Alfred. He's as perfectly cast as Conway. Bob Hastings, whom I'm embarrassed to say I remember from 80s General Hospital, is excellent as Police Commissioner Gordon. And of course the various guest stars, as they did on Justice League, just rev it up a notch by giving credible performances. It definitely helps animé to have the series written as if the characters are actually human, if you know what I mean. I mean, no "cartoon logic". The Real Ghostbusters worked the same way -- the human characters were human and could get hurt, whereas the logic of the universe was that there were ghosts and demons and various paranormal beings running around New York. Anyway, I like that style of animation, where you have a base of reality amid a fantasy/sci-fi/paranormal show (and with animé, your effects are going to be better 'cause your only limited by imagination). You'd think I'd like Japanese Animation, but I've never really cared for it, despite my cousin and various fan-boy friends of mine trying to get me into it. And the few series that I have liked, are too expensive to purchase anyway.

Anyways, getting back to Batman: TAS, the series has a 1930s/film-noir look to it that I love. And some of favorite episodes in set one are the ones with a film noir feel to them like: "Appt in Crime Alley", "UnderDwellers", and, tho' it's not strictly film-noir, "P.O.V.". Anyway, I love the look of the show, the writing, the stories, and the kinda' psychological look at some of the characters, such as Batman and a couple of the villains (esp. Two-Face).

The Batman is of course completely different. In the pilot (tho' EpGuides.com lists it as the second episode), Alfred brings Bruce an anniversary cake with three candles. It's been three years since Bruce has donned the camp & cowl as The Batman to revenge his parents death. So, Bruce here is very young. Much younger than most other versions of Batman, even ones doing the origin story (such as Tim Burton's original Batman movie, where Bruce was in his late 20s or early 30s). Here, Bruce is in his early 20s. Alfred is also a bit younger than normal, and still has dark brown (not white) hair. The Batman really gets into the psychological nature of the various villains, as well as Bruce/Batman himself. For example, Det. Ethan Bennett is an old friend of Bruce's (whom he had considered revealing his secret identity to), who's kidnapped by the Joker, tortured, and dosed with this stuff that turns him into Clayface.

Tho' B:TAS got into psychology with it's background story for Two-Face (and it doesn't help at all that Batman was kinda' responsible for the accident. Well, Bats and the villain of the ep, whom I can't remember his name at the moment).

In this series, Batman does use a lot of gadgets and electronics -- but I liked that. Yeah, it's different from the heavily-noir B:TAS, but honestly, you couldn't remake B:TAS, so it was better to go in a completely different direction. And, you get used to the different look after awhile. Again, Alfred is brilliant in The Batman, and has a sense of humor, which helps but is also amusing. It takes awhile to get used to someone other than Kevin Conway playing Batman, and honestly, I think I would have preferred Conway, but once you get used to it the voice actor (?) does a decent job with the character. And, of course, some eps of The Batman are just total and complete crack! As in, What were the writers on, when they came up with this stuff. Bits to watch for that are extremely interesting include, Alfred signing Bruce up with an Internet dating service, and even finding him a date! And, any episode with Catwoman - since she and Bruce have great chemistry! (By contrast, Selina Kyle in Batman: The Animated Series, is pretty obviously a lesbian, with no interest in Bruce Wayne, and a live-in female secretary!)