Sunday 6 June 2010

Movie 153: Diminished Capacity

Cooper (Matthew Broderick) is a Chicago journalist who is suffering from memory problems after an accident caused by his formerly alcoholic friend Stan (Louis C.K.). He receives a letter from his mum asking him to come out to look after his Uncle Rollie (Alan Alda) who’s having some pretty major memory problems of his own and thinks the fish in the river can write poetry. Uncle Rollie clues Cooper in to a baseball card his grandfather gave him, a 1908 Shulte from the last year the Cubs won the series. The card is extremely rare so they decide to head to Chicago to sell it

This is a lightish indie comedy with some drama elements. A dramady. The kind of thing that needs to be indie in the US, but could be made by Working title over here. And its not a bad one.

I’m a Cubs fan. For those who know squat about baseball, the Chicago Cubs haven’t won the world series since 1908. That’s 101 seasons ago. They could change their name to the Chicago Next Years and it would be much more fitting. They’ve come close, but a couple of generations of fans have lived and died without seeing their once great team win the big one. Which sucks. A fair bit of fun is poked at the Cubs and some of the crazy fans. That’s fine. Hell it’s funny.

Alan Alda is basically in the Bill Murray role here. Though Murray is a big Cubs fan so I doubt he’d have played it (Alda’s character is from the St Louis area and therefore a Cards fan, the Cubs big rivals). Alda does a great job as the guy with the early, or possibly not so early, stages of Alzheimer’s that’s sometimes funny and sometimes not. Dramady.

Broderick does a good job here too even if he is looking pretty rough. That fits the character though as he is suffering from brain damage. It’s also nice to see Louis C.K. not playing a flat out comedy role, though his character isn’t exactly serious.

The film falls flat a few times and that’s mainly when its doing close to main stream moments. There’s a few whacky comedy and one romantic moment that would fit in to any old comedy movie, but it veers too far in to obvious territory and lets things down a bit. That said they don’t exactly detract from the movie, just feel a little lazy.

It’s not another Little Miss Sunshine, but it is a good indie flick. I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy it even if your not a fan of baseball. Hell, you might like it more.

Next up: Nick of Time

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