TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: renee zellweger stars as sonia , a young jewish wife and mother frustrated by the constraints of her hasidic community in brooklyn .
her husband ( glenn fitzgerald ) is a religious scholar whose all - in - a - day's - work attitude on sex fails to tame the " fire " she feels within , as so she confesses to the rebbe ( after hearing her fiery confession , the rebbe suddenly gets frisky with his pleasantly surprised wife -- and dies the next morning ) .
sensing her frustration , her husband 's brother ( christopher eccleston ) gives her a job in his jewelry brokering business in exchange for raw , passionless sex that just fans sonia 's still - burning flame .
on the job , sonia befriends ramon ( allen payne ) , a cool blast of hunky puerto rican water who does his own jewelry designs when not working as a grunt in an upscale jewelry store .
can fire - taming be far be that far behind for the ever - smoldering sonia ?
just about everything in writer - director boaz yakin 's rings false , starting with the improbably cast zellweger , who does an adequate enough acting job but simply looks too waspy for the role .
a better fit would have been julianna margulies , who outshines zellweger as sonia 's take - no - crap sister - in - law .
some of sonia 's baby steps toward liberation , such as indulging in a non - kosher egg roll in chinatown , come off as silly .
yakin attempts to spice up the proceedings with a touch of magical realism -- in the form of the recurring presence of sonia 's long - dead brother 's ghost -- make the story feel even more trite than it already is .
"
i did n't know what to expect .
it 's like something you chase for so long , but then you do n't know how to react when you get it .
i still do n't know how to react .
"
--michael
jordan , on winning his first nba championship in 1991 .
..
or , my thoughts after meeting him on november 21 , 1997

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: jean - claude van damme movies tend to be , if nothing else , a lot of mindless fun .
his latest film , " knock off , " skips on the fun part leaving a wildly incoherent exercise that is , well , simply mindless .
you ca n't really blame van damme .
no one , i suspect , has ever expected " the muscles from brussels " to contribute a heartfelt performance brimming with introspection and delicate shades of gray .
and even his sidekick co - star , " saturday night live " alumnus rob " makin ' copies " schneider , does what 's expected of him , although neither appear to want the role of straight man .
no ,
the problem with the film is its direction .
the first five minutes of the film are incomprehensible . . .
and it goes downhill from there !
five hundred characters , it seems , are introduced within the first fifteen minutes .
van damme does n't land his first kick until after thirty -- too late for most action fans -- and by the time the hour mark has rolled around ,
your jaw will be on your cup holder and you 'll be wondering why you elected to spend seven dollars on this mess
.
director hark tsui , whose previous film was the van damme / dennis rodman teamed " double team , " films at such a frenetic pace that it 's hard to know what 's going on
, who 's on whose side , and what the point of all this is .
faster than you can yell " fruit stand !
"
we 're watching a crazed rickshaw race with schneider being bounced along by an energetic van damme .
when schneider starts whacking van damme in the behind with a four - foot eel while enthusing " move your beautiful big ass , " the movie takes an unprecedented turn to the bizarre .
every now and again " knock off " will deliver some truly ingenious directorial flourishes -- inventive camera shots and angles , wild rides down gun silencers and from the tops of buildings to the sprawling street below , revealing cut - ins within the frame -- but they all happen too quickly , and within such a furious frame of reference , that they 're wasted . if only hark could have slowed things down just for a minute . if you 're interested in the plot , you 're better off reading a capsule review than trying to extract any meaning from the on - screen shenanigans : " jean - claude van damme plays a shady bluejeans manufacturer who uncovers a russian mafia plot to terrorize the world with " nanobombs " hidden in cabbage patch knock - offs .
maybe .
with paul sorvino .
"
a more accurate summary would be " jean - claude van damme bums around hong kong failing to avoid large , blatant coca - cola product placements .
"
the fact that the film is staged during hong kong 's last days under british rule gets some lip service but does n't figure in at all .
perhaps " knock off " 's most intriguing credit is that ron and russell mael composed the frenzied music score .
some of you might remember the mael brothers as the ' 80s synth pop duo sparks ; their contributions here are as confused as the accompanying action-- " kimono my house " indeed !
like the cheap jeans and " pumma " sneakers manufactured in hong kong , van damme 's latest is a real phony .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: deuce bigalow ( rob schneider ) cleans fish tanks .
yeah ,
i did n't know that was a real job either .
one of his customers is antoine leconte ( oded fehr ) , a successful gigolo .
when antoine has to go to sweden for three weeks , he lets deuce use his house to look after an ailing $ 800 fish . fooling around , deuce sets fire to the kitchen and smashes a $ 6000 fish tank .
after taking a try at one of antoine 's clients and earning $ 10 , deuce decides to prostitute himself to raise the money to replace the fish tank before the fiery - tempered antoine returns .
enter t .
j .
( eddie griffin ) , a pimp for " man - whores , " who arranges for deuce to service an assortment of women whose imperfections keep them from dating .
there 's an enormous woman ( played by transvestite porn star chi chi la rue ) who hides food in her clothes .
there 's claire ( gail o'grady ) whose narcolepsy causes her to fall asleep every few minutes .
tina ( torsten voges ) is so tall her face does n't fit on the screen , and ruth ( amy poehler ) has tourette 's syndrome and shouts obscenities without warning .
finally there 's kate ( arija bareikis )
whose sorority sisters secretly paid her fare .
she seems perfect , and deuce quickly falls in love with her .
( she does , we discover later , have an imperfection , but deuce decides it is n't important . )
deuce 's life is complicated by a bothersome cop ( william forsythe ) looking for information on antoine and by kate 's discovery of his man - whoring . however , neither threat generates much suspense .
the formula is so familiar that we know how it will end from the start .
" deuce bigalow " is the first project from adam sandler 's company happy madison , the formation of which assures that we 'll be seeing the sandler style of comedy mass - produced at an increasing rate in years to come . be afraid .
be very afraid .
the good news is that sandler does n't actually appear in " deuce " and that rob schneider and eddie griffin are funnier than sandler .
schneider has a sweetness that makes the clueless but good - hearted deuce believable .
griffin 's delivery is dead - on , especially in the coining of " technical terms " for t .
j . 's profession , as in " do n't make me he - bitch man - slap you !
"
there 's the expected amount of toilet humor in " deuce .
"
( for one thing , deuce 's dad is a men 's room attendant ) .
does anyone over the age of eight actually find bowel movements that funny ?
for most of us , i think that childhood fascination with bodily functions disappears when we hit the far - side of puberty and discover how funny sex is .
i , for one , will be glad when the toilet trend is finally flushed .
bottom line : " deuce " does n't offer anything new but it is intermittently funny .

SOLUTION:
N