A LIFE LESS ORDINARY (1997)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
So let's see what we have here. A dim bulb of a janitor (Ewan McGregor) has just been fired by his stern boss (Ian Holm). The boss's daughter (Cameron Diaz) loves to play a little William Tell with her orthodontist (Stanley Tucci). The daughter visits her father at his "Hudsucker Proxy" office. The janitor comes back asking for his job. Instead he kidnaps the boss's daughter, though he knows next to nothing about kidnapping or ransoms. He is also incapable of making a ransom phone call. Two pistol-packing angels (Delroy Lindo, Holly Hunter) are sent to earth to make sure the janitor and boss's daughter fall in love by any means necessary.
I am usually a sucker for offbeat romantic comedies but this turgid, lifeless film by Danny Boyle ("Trainspotting") has nothing up its sleeve. McGregor and Diaz barely pass a 2 on the electric chemistry scale so their eventual affair is unbelievable. Most of the dialogue is unfunny and, at times, barely audible. To make matters worse, there is an ineptly staged bank robbery and a car chase! It even has one of the most torturous of cliched devices, a karaoke duet! The tone is inconsistent, veering from melodrama to cutesy romance to black comedy. Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild" had abrupt shifts in tone but all in the service of a story - this movie is like a high-speed romp through an interminable void.
"A Life Less Ordinary" is a major comedown from Boyle's "Shallow Grave" and the electrically charged "Trainspotting." Boyle seems to be coasting on Coen Brothers territory with not a tenth of their style or pungent wit (it is no surprise that Coen regulars Holly Hunter and Dan Hedaya are in the movie). There is a clever, funny animated sequence that has more laughs than anything in the entire movie - unfortunately it is placed during the end credits.
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