My Review: Flypaper (3/10)

¨It´s like extra sad when a hot chick dies. When an ugly chick dies, it´s like, their life probably sucked anyway, so it´s no big deal.¨

The only thing Flypaper had going for it (beside my love for Ashley Judd) was that it was written by the screenwriters who brought us The Hangover, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. Despite my love for The Hangover, I really hated the script here. I found the film incredibly stupid; the performances extremely over the top and the jokes didn’t really work. Flypaper is a terrible comedy that makes any Adam Sandler movie look like a masterpiece. I thought the entire film was ridiculous and a mess from the very opening scene. The comedy just felt too forced and it was a shame because the premise was kind of interesting on paper. You have these characters assembled inside a closed space with several twists and surprises, but none of them ever feel authentic or funny. In trying to be clever Flypaper ends up being pretty stupid. I really couldn’t understand how such a talented cast would accept to work in a movie like this. Ashley Judd and Patrick Dempsey can do much better than this. The jokes and gags were absolutely terrible and I didn’t even smile during any moment of the movie. Rob Mincoff´s (The Haunted Mansion and The Forbidden Kingdom) film failed tremendously. I wasn’t expecting much from this film, but it was way worse than I thought it would be. Lucas and Moore proved with The Hangover that they can write clever and funny comedies, but I don’t know what happened to them here.

The film takes place almost entirely inside a bank where we are introduced to Tripp (Patrick Dempsey) who happens to be there changing a hundred dollar bill. He begins hitting on the teller, Kaitlin (Ashley Judd), but she´s engaged and not amused. When Tripp is about to exit the bank he realizes that a heist is about to take place as two red necks nicknamed Peanut Butter (Tim Blake Nelson) and Jelly (Pruitt Taylor Vince) begin pulling out their guns. Tripp jumps over the counter and protects Kaitlin from the robbers, but almost at the same exact time another bank robber team is present. Darrien (Mekhi Phifer), Gates (Matt Ryan), and Weinstein (John Ventimiglia) seem to have planned out their heist with much more professionalism than the red neck Peanut Butter and Jelly duo. In middle of the confrontation the two teams open gunfire until Tripp convinces them to stop as they both seem to have come for different heists, the pros for the vault and the amateurs for the ATM machines. Several twists begin to take place from this point on as Tripp tries to solve the mystery as to why two heist teams happened to arrive at the exact time. Could there be an informant inside the bank?

The premise might look interesting on paper because the concept is pretty interesting and original, but the execution is just terrible. From the very opening scene I didn’t buy any of the characters or could take any of them seriously because the performances were really over the top. The script was terribly delivered and the actors had nothing to work with really. The entire detective story seemed pretty pointless and I really didn’t care whether or not the mystery would be solved. At times I felt like I was watching a quirky staged play. I really hated this movie despite the fact that Ashley Judd had a lead role here. The only good thing I can say about this movie is that it only lasted about 85 minutes so it was over pretty quickly. By any means possible please stay away from this movie.

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