The Man

The Man (Director: Les Mayfield)

When I saw the director's name, I thought there would be no chance in hell that he'd done anything in which I've heard--but I was so very wrong. Mayfield's directorial debut was Encino Man. Then he went down the remake path with 1994's Miracle on 34th Street and 1997's The Absent-Minded Professor update Flubber. Then came the Martin Lawrence comedy Blue Streak. His last film was 2001's American Outlaws. The Man is written by Blue Streak scribes Michael Berry, John Blumenthal, and Stephen Carpenter.

Well, we've been seeing mismatched-buddy-comedies for years, and I'd say the racial kind started with 48 Hours although there may have been some predecessors. The plot always starts with the fish-out-of-water teaming up with a cop, or FBI agent, or some other law enforcement, and the hilarity ensues due to all the differences the pair has knowing they have to work together.

You could not have found more of a mismatch than Eugene Levy and Samuel L. Jackson. On paper, the pair look so out of place together that it might give you a chuckle before you even see the movie. This is the kind of thing where people sit in an apartment, eat pizza, and start coming up with some off-the-wall pairings and make each other laugh at the prospect. Unfortunately, we have only one actor onboard with this, and it may be due to the script.

Dental salesman Andy Fidler (Levy) finds himself getting mistaken for a gun buyer, and ATF agent Derrick Vann (Jackson) arrests him in the attempt to try to find the sellers. It's fairly clear that Fidler isn't part of this, but Vann keeps him along for the ride because the sellers think Fidler is the buyer. Vann has other worries, too. Internal Affairs believes he's dirty and he killed his partner, and a team is tailing him and watching his every move, led by Miguel Ferrer. So, as the different meets occur, this gives the talkative, annoying, nerdy Fidler a chance to get on the uptight Vann's nerves.

Eugene Levy is funny--if you have any reason to want to go see this, it's him. This is a guy who for years has taken limited roles in the worst of comedies and has made it a bright spot, and in every Christopher Guest film he has practically stolen the show. The problem is, Samuel Jackson is so uptight and humorless, we don't get to see him playing along. There are some scenes where he runs down a petty thug that might get some laughs, but most of it is him being a grouch. And he has a line that made me wince and will be an end-of-the-year notable: Start talkin' or I'll beat you like a runaway slave. In a movie full of irreverence that might have been funny, but it's an isolated occurrence.

And like in most of these comedies, the plot is fairly irrelevant. Even in movies like Lethal Weapon or Beverly Hills Cop, the bad guys are pretty basic and the story is not what drives the movie, it's the comic characters. So, I will not be mentioning anything about plot here--this is a movie that is one-sided in favor of Levy. If Jackson could have come along for the ride or given the opportunity to do so, this might have been overall decent.