A father invites his estranged son and the son’s friends to a weekend at his ski lodge, in a stupefyingly awful, in-your-face independent comedy that makes Where the Boys Are look like Love’s Labour’s Lost. Robert Downey Jr. turns up sporting a very phony and unfunny Bavarian accent that is exercised, like our patience, at great length, and the sophomoric sex gags (gay as well as straight) would do dishonor to a frat-house video. Directed by George Haas, who scripted it with Neill Barry. With Stephen Baldwin, Danny Nucci, George Newbern, Claudia Schiffer, Alison Eastwood, and Suzanne Cryer. (JR) Read more
Sean Connery remains the closest thing we have to Cary Grant, which helps to explain why he often gets teamed with leading ladies a third his age. But he brings off the conceit with more polish than Clint Eastwood, and it’s the romantic sparring with Catherine Zeta-Jones as another glamorous thiefnot the unsuspenseful heiststhat makes this silly thriller lightly bearable. The multiple double crosses tend to be more fun, if no less predictable, than the hyperbolic action sequences because the stars are more at ease (and we’re not watching stunt doubles). Some of the locations (London, rural Scotland, Kuala Lumpur) add spice to the mixture, and Ving Rhames and Will Patton provide the formulaic secondary cast. Jon Amiel directed the script by Ron Bass and William Broyles. (JR) Read more
