The Big Bounce

Directed by George Armitage

Bounding nationwide 1/30/2004

2 *

When a few hits are produced from any author’s work, the push is on in Hollywood to acquire more of his work and get film versions made while the heat is still on. Combined with Hollywood’s current penchant for remaking just about everything one can imagine and the result is The Big Bounce, a remake of an old Ryan O’Neal (pre-Love Story) movie from the late ‘60s based on an Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, Out of Sight) crime novel.

By reputation, the original version of The Big Bounce is an astoundingly stupid movie. In its current incarnation, it is not much. Not laughably stupid, the movie’s charms require a good deal of effort to unearth. It helps that female lead Sara Foster spends a lot of time in a bikini and that the whole thing is shot on location in Hawaii. And it has a largely likeable cast starring Owen Wilson and featuring Morgan Freeman, Gary Sinise, Charlie Sheen, and Bebe Neuwirth. But this flick’s flaws are more than enough to overwhelm the aesthetic charms of Ms. Foster and the islands.

One problem is that it is a caper movie without much of a caper. Its “hero” is a dull-headed, indolent crook who seems smarter than the people he is involved with, but to no great advantage. As the movie opens Jack Ryan (Wilson) is working a straight job for a resort developer (Sinise) whose plans include desecrating an area important to local protesters. While showing sympathy to the Hawaiians, Ryan gets the foreman upset with him, hits the guy with a baseball bat, and ends up doing a 30-day stay in the pokey. Upon release, he returns to petty criminality, hooks up with Sinise’s mistress (Foster), takes a handyman’s job working at Freeman’s cluster of vacation cottages, and while getting embroiled with Foster begins tutoring her on basic breaking and entering. Meanwhile, Foster seems to be hatching a plan to rip-off Sinise, while alternately lining up Wilson to be a confederate and a fall-guy. The meandering movie cannot seem to figure out what direction it wants to head in and the audience loses track fairly quickly.

The slack plot seems more the work of screenwriter Sebastian Gutierrez than what we are used to from Leonard. And when the plot is finally revealed and resolved, it seems like a lot of work could have been saved by just going that way in the first place. The problem is not that the characters are not as smart as they think they are—it is the screenwriter who is the dope.

Director George Armitage has developed a certain cult following with slightly goofy stories set among the perpetually bent such as Miami Blues and Grosse Pointe Blank. Next time maybe he should work with a screenwriter other than one whose great contribution to film was Gothika.

A lot has happened since Leonard first bounced in. He has become a better writer. The name Jack Ryan has become synonymous with the works of Tom Clancy and really should have been changed here. Audiences have come to expect a certain screwball comedy quality to an Elmore Leonard story that is sorely lacking here.

One can understand the attraction that Hollywood feels towards remakes. It is a good story and has already been tested in the marketplace. Since they are incapable of coming up with great ideas on their own, it is certainly easier to rework past success. But why remake stuff like The Big Bounce—all the good ones already redone? How about Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Sting? I will probably live to regret that last sentence—I meant it sarcastically.

–Bill Henry

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"Have You Seen . . . ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films

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