too many characters, speaking too flat a dialogue

Rating: 4/10 (8 January 2005)

Although admirably done on a tiny (these days) budget, writer/producer/star/driver/ coffeeserver Braff tries to jam too much into this story of (eventually) a search for love, and the movie as a whole suffers for it.
Braff complains (commentary from deleted scenes) of having to remove important scenes for time, but the ones he leaves in are pointlessly flakey -- it's as if he couldn't decide if he wanted a quirky movie (and that's all), or a story of love lost and found, and so he got half of each. He also spends far too much time with useless characters, apparently believing that the audience won't sit still without a goofy scene moment every so often -- it's the only reason I can see for any of the scenes in the walmart-clone, for instance.
It's a shame, really. Hidden inside scenes with Largeman's endlessly goofy (to no real purpose) friends is a great story of him, his father, his mother, and Sam. I wish above all that Braff had had enough confidence in that central story to just tell that -- it might be that he didn't think his writing skills were up to the task (because the dialogue is pretty flat), and so put in goofy-character distractions (and occasional unnecessary camera tricks) in hopes that we wouldn't notice.
Braff's got real potential as a storyteller, but this is really a training film. I think his future work will be of great value. . .