Plot: What’s it about?
It’s perfectly understandable for Hollywood to want to remake movies that have been successful in the past. Even movies that have been critically acclaimed are being remade (case in point: “The Manchurian Candidate” and a few years back “Psycho”). The powers that be naturally assume that what once brought audiences in should do it again. Or should it? This is the case with “The Big Bounce”, a re-make of the 1969 movie of the same name with the same plot by the same author (Elmore Leonard…more on him in a minute). The original starred a then aspiring actor named Ryan O’Neil and Leigh Taylor Young. The “new” version stars Morgan Freeman, Owen Wilson, Gary Sinise and Charlie Sheen. Fairly ordinary household names and not the “aspiring” type, wouldn’t you say? It’s clear that the newer movies inspired by Leonard’s work (Get Shorty, Out of Sight and Jackie Brown) have inspired this movie to be retold in a 21st century setting. All the elements are there, as is the cast…so what went wrong and why, oh why, didn’t it work? Execution. That’s the problem plain and simple. The director, George Armitage (who directed a recent favorite of mine “Grosse Point Blank”), had everything in his hands and somehow let it slip away. He developed characters that we didn’t care about and a story that was “so so” at best. So what’s it all about?
The “Bounce” con man Jack Ryan (Owen Wilson) is after a stash of $200,000 held by local resort developer and nasty man Ray Ritchie (Gary Sinise). With the help of Ritchie’s mistress (model-turned-actress Sara Foster), Jack schemes past Ritchie’s henchmen (Vinnie Jones and Charlie Sheen) while working for a local judge (Morgan Freeman) who owns a resort rival to Ritchie’s. And that’s it. Yep, you ‘d hope for a story developed by Elmore Leonard there would be more, but in a nutshell, that’s it. Quite simply, the movie came out in January – a month known for the dumping grounds of the studios. That being said, it’s painfully obvious that the players involved were doing this for a quick paycheck and those involved for their “acting” talents didn’t do a whole lot of good showing them off. Sara Foster has the most to prove here as she is making the leap from MTV host to actress. I’m sorry to say, Miss Foster, that your looks are a dime a dozen and I can imagine one of any number of model/actresses in your part. That’s not to say that she was bad, but do we need another blonde bombshell in Hollywood? Probably. But then again, those choices aren’t made by me…Finally, the stake of $200,000 just isn’t that much. I’m reminded of Dr. Evil in “Austin Powers” asking for $1 million dollars and being laughed at. The stakes have got to be high for there to be any emotional involvement and in this case, there just wasn’t any. I’d recommend a rental at the most.
Video: How does it look?
“The Big Bounce” is just as glossy as one might expect. The 2.35:1 anamorphic image shows off all of Hawaii’s glory and the image is just as colorful as I’d thought it would be. Flesh tones seemed a bit over saturated, like everyone had a sunburn. Then again, everyone might have had sunburn seeing as the locale rarely differed from the bright sun day in and day out! At times, the image did seem just a bit soft, notably on some of the longer shots. Edge enhancement was minimal and thought I had expected a bit more, it’s a fine-looking transfer that’s sure not to disappoint, especially on smaller screens.
Audio: How does it sound?
Audio wise, this is fairly straight-forward. A simple, yet effective Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is used and though with no great effect, it serves its purpose. Dialogue is clean and void of any distortion. Most of the action comes from the front sound stage, with the surround speakers kicking in only occasionally. There are some good scenes of surfing (obviously), and the waves crashing makes for a good ambiance. Aside from that, there’s nothing that really stuck in my mind to say “Hey, great soundtrack”! Again…simple and effective.
Supplements: What are the extras?
As far as extras go, there isn’t much to choose from here. There’s two and a half featurettes (and I’ll get to the “half” in a minute) along with the theatrical trailer in anamorphic widescreen. The first featurette is entitled “The Big Bounce: A Con in the Making”. This is your standard EPK “making of…” featurette. Interviews with the cast and crew tell ooohs and ahhhhs of working on an Elmore Leonard movie, but they seemed to be going through the motions here. Next up we have “Surfing the Pipeline” which tells of the surfing used in the movie. Owen Wilson, though he might look like the quintessential surfer, had not ever surfed before “…though I’d always been interested in it…” he says. He learned to surf enough to cut the mustard, but just barely. Lastly, this is the “half” of a featurette that was mentioned. “Wicked Waves” is an assortment of surfer outtakes set to music. It offers no real value unless you want to watch surfers for 15 minutes. It’s likely that “The Big Bounce” will find more of an audience on DVD as it didn’t too well at the box office. Or maybe the original was just better and they didn’t need to re-make it?
