great

Rating: 8/10 (27 June 2007)

Zero Mostel blew me away in this film (even though I've seen enough of his work that I shoulda seen it comin'!), which I think is the best Mel Brooks film that I've seen. He manages to make Max one of those classic "lovable scoundrels" while at the same time providing a plausible mentor for Gene Wilder's Leo, a young accountant who Max cajoles and corrupts into joining his scheme to produce Broadway's biggest ever flop. Along the road from profitable failure to disastrous success, Leo emerges from the shell of his insecure conservatism to become a jaded -- and free-spirited -- fellow manipulator.
Although the film often feels somewhat "stage-bound", I'd still argue that it's the most cinematic project I've seen from Brooks. That's partly because here he isn't spoofing a particular genre and adopting its visual style, but mostly because of the greater depth and resonance of the characters. I especially enjoyed the "seduction" scene with Mostel and wilder at the big Parisian-styled fountain -- I felt the magic of cinema there in a way that I've never really felt with a Brooks movie before. I felt myself really wishing I could see this in the theater with a bunch of other people instead of at home on DVD with my girlfriend.
At times the humor is a bit obvious, leaning as Brooks often does on simple puns. But the characters -- including supporting ones like Dick Shawn's wasted hippie "L.S.D.", Kenneth Mars' suitably overstated Nazi playwright, and Estelle Winwood as a violently lusty crone -- keep things moving pleasantly. The performances are good and the dialog unusually subtle for any comedy.
I felt the conclusion was a little bit of a letdown, even if it was just Brooks being self-reflexive on the obvious nature of dramatic resolution (courtroom scenes are the very definition of "obligatory"). But the way the play itself unfolded, though again perhaps a bit too fast and obvious, provides an insightful and humorous view of the subjectivity of the artistic experience in general.
An excellent film, featuring Zero Mostel at the peak of his considerable genius and Brooks at his most restrained and human.