The Barroom Debate Scene

Rating: Null/10 (25 January 2001)

Thank God for Jay Mohr and the short lived series Action. At least they had the courage to directly, on-the-air, from other Hollywood players, lambaste this monstrosity of a
script that went all the way to the Oscar's!
Bad scripts come and go. Just part of life. Giving them Oscars as Best Screenplay is criminal. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are fine human beings and good looking guys living great lives. They just can't write to save them, that's all.
The barroom debate scene between the snooty student and the self educated Damon is merely the most pretentious and stupid scene EVER to portray itself as having any connection to reality whatsoever. Why didn't it get THAT Oscar?
This awful film was a top ten grossing movie in 1997. That's the really scary part. This bad a film does that well. And it's not an action flick, it pretends to be an intellectual flick with an important message! As you read this, if you didn't see the gruesome falseness of the barroom debate scene, just remember that your really dwelling some place far out, but nowhere in the real world. I bet you liked Blair Witch.
A very distant second in the removed-from-reality category could be Jason Robarbs in the "senior partners take a shower together scene" in Philadelphia. But that's not really close to this masterwork. One can also think of the Happy Days episode where Fonzie and Richie go to a snooty rich people's party and are treated so badly. Another worthy contender. Several episodes of The White Shadow perhaps? James At Sixteen? I'll wager young Matt and Damon loved those shows!
The bar is set. That barroom debate scene may not be the worst thing ever filmed. But it is certainly the most intellectually pretentious and cloyingly stupid scene ever made. No surprise to finding Robin Williams in this film. How did he let them leave him out of this scene? Oversight.