Who Is Cletis Tout? | ||||
Chris Ver Wiel Christian Slater, Richard Dreyfuss, Portia de Rossi, Tim Allen, RuPaul, Billy Connolly 2001 Widescreen; closed caption. |
It's evident why this post-"Pulp Fiction" crime burlesque sat on the shelf for more than a year. "Who Is Cletis Tout?" doesn't work as comedy, mystery, romance or as a story of familial loyalty, although it tries its hand at all of the above. It has actors who shine, given a good script and careful direction: Christian Slater and Richard Dreyfuss as escaped convicts and Portia de Rossi as the latter's daughter. They're lost amid plot holes and forced, smirky dialogue, and encumbered by pokey direction that sucks the life out of each scene. Low point: The always-mediocre Tim Allen, awful as a hit man with a fixation on movies. The idea of a Hollywood-loving mobster was funny in "Get Shorty," but that dark comedy had smart insights about the cruelty and callousness of the movie industry to explain why a hired gun was in a comfort zone when he arrived in L.A. to take a stab at producing films. Nothing close to that here, even if drag queen RuPaul and Scottish comedian Billy Connolly are in the cast. | |||
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