Mira Sorvino | ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES

Stu is an uber driver and a retail schlep who’s madly and secretly in love with his best friend, a woman totally oblivious as she dates asshole after asshole. Stu (Kumail Nanjiani) is spending yet another night driving in order to make extra money to fund his best friend’s dreams and get her to notice him, once and for all. Unfortunately, it’s officer Vic who notices him, and his night’s about to get a whole lot worse.

Vic (Dave Bautista) is a police officer with a weird back story: 1. his partner was killed on a drug bust and he’s been obsessed with getting revenge ever since 2. he recently had lasik eye surgery. So, thanks to that convenient little plot detail, Vic is practically blind when the biggest drug deal of the year is about to go down, and for some reason he MUST act on it, independently of the police force of course, and he commandeers poor Stu and his silent but deadly electric car for a whole night’s worth of mayhem. Even tougher to digest: Stu is so obsessed with 5-star ratings that he goes along with it. So preoccupied with his uber rating that he’ll risk life and livelihood to follow Vic into situations where even Vic should not be. And Vic is the kind of prick who continually threatens a poor rating to coerce an unarmed civilian to provide back-up on an unsanctioned mission.

I’m not the biggest Dave Bautista fan, or indeed a fan of anyone coming out of the Dwayne Johnson School of Acting, though I’ll take Bautista over Cena any day (but ideally neither, ever). Bautista does little to make the material work but I’m not even sure I can blame him for the movie’s many problems. He and Nanjiani actually have some pretty decent chemistry, in the old buddy tradition of opposites attract. Nanjiani is, of course, the reason to see this movie. All the movie’s laughs, and there are a surprising number, are because of him. He works even harder than his overworked character Stu to deliver us a pleasant film-going experience, and while I’m glad I didn’t pay to see this in theatres, I think it’s a decent at-home watch if you’re in the mood for a mindless comedy. And I do insist on the mindless part because no, that plot don’t make no sense. But if you’re in the mood for a violent, R-rated comedy that makes John Woo AND and Johnny Cash references (and really, who’s not?), then boy have I got a film to fill that very narrow niche.

Mothers and daughters: a relationship so often mined by Hollywood that maybe all the diamonds are gone and all that’s left are duds.

This movie is a dud, but not for lack of trying. Susan Sarandon, plus real-life daughter Eva Amurri Martino, and Sharon Stone, and Courteney Cox, and Selma Blair, and Christina Ricci, and probably more besides that I’m forgetting. That’s an awful lot of leading ladies covering pretty much every angle of motherhood that you can imagine. In fact, one of the maxresdefault reasons this movie fails is that it tries too hard. The script is just so stupidly earnest. It makes wonderful actresses say such flighty, cliched things. And everyone cries all the time, at the drop of a hat. It made me really wonder why the script writer has so many fucking hats, and why she’s always dropping them. Secure your hat to your head, lady.

Mira Sorvino. That’s who I was forgetting.

Anyway, are your tear ducts all clogged up? Do you have some salt water that needs purging? Were you hoping to remove one tiny strip of makeup all the way down your face? Then have I got a movie for you! Mothers and Daughters doesn’t just ask you to cry, it begs. The director probably owns stock in Kleenex. But it’s the kind of shame-crying that only makes you mad at your stupid emotions and the things that make you feel them. I watched this on Netflix at 2am, when it is perfectly acceptable to cry watching a movie you loathe as long as you have Doritos to keep you company.

The writing is ambitious, but ambitious in the way that a 19 year old writes a memoir. People will be so impressed when I use all my big words! I have a thesaurus and I rs_1024x759-160502103124-1024-courteney-cox-mothers-daughters.ls.5216 want you to watch me abuse it! I’m going to write a trite little movie that wishes it was a pretentious little novel! Script writing 101 says I should put in a conflict here! [Insert conflict]. I wonder if Sharon Stone can do polysyllabics? Either way she’ll be impressed when I whip out this tired metaphor! And I’ll make it super relatable by including a variety of white women with down-to-earth jobs like bra designer, fashion icon, and celebrity photographer. And I wonder if I can work in cancer? Watch out, heart strings!

In conclusion, Mothers and Daughters is a movie I found randomly on Netflix, having never heard of it before despite starring at least 3 Oscar-nominated actresses. It will be palatable to neither mothers nor daughters but it’s definitely a movie that exists. The end.