Despicable movie!

Rating: 1/10 (7 September 2006)

I loathe this picture. I'm not even sure I watched all of it. Jack Nicholson's character is set up as an obnoxious oaf merely so that everyone else in the movie --- blacks, gays, whatever stereotype came to mind --- can take shots at him and still appear virtuous. If this were a made-for-TV about a man with Melvin's afflictions we'd all be expected to have a little compassion and the people who abused him would be the villains, but here he's just a fish in a barrel. Really, if you paid big bucks to live in a decent apartment building and there was a dog pissing in the hallway wouldn't you have a right to be angry? But in this film it just makes him a bully who picks on cute little animals. And Helen Hunt (a fine actress, don't get me wrong) gets to once more trot out the sanctimonious bitch persona she's built a career on. Honest to god, I'm getting mad just writing this review. Over and out.