This Is A Character Study, NOT A Comedy. Boy, Did SOMEONE Mess Up!

Rating: 3/10 (13 May 2007)

I found the marketing completely off the mark for this work. This was billed as a comedy, but this is NOT a comedy. It is more a character study than anything else, and as such, I cannot say it was even well made, despite my understanding of the marketing problems, which occurred.
Murray is way off his game here. They say he tried something new and did well at it. I say, regardless of his trying something new, he stunk UP the place, and should have been pulled from this project. I LIKE Murray, but his dialed-in performance did nothing to further endear, and did a lot in the way of putting me off him.
There ARE a few elements which make this worth watching. Owen Wilson is great, and comes off more like the Bill Murray that Murray fans grew to love and have become disgruntled with in the past decade or so. Scarlett Johanssen was another element which made this viewable. She is a delight as a neglected newlywed who forms a weird bond with an egocentric aging actor (well, at least the typecasting worked for Murray). Anna Farris is also present, but you only see her for a few moments.
All in all? I can not for the LIFE of me understand how this won an Oscar! I was bored, bored, bored. The performances were stilted, the dialog delivery was halting and unconnected, and the overall feeling of the film itself was like something out of the late 1970's, but perhaps that last item was the catalyst int hat Baby Boomers bought into it. I am not sure what happened to boost the overall appreciation for this crap, but I cannot say I enjoyed anything about it beyond Scarlett Johanssen and Owen Wilson, and then only marginally, as neither the script, nor the execution, was anything to crow about.
It rates a 2.8/10 from...
the Fiend :.