Poor Goldie Hawn.
It's been 25 years since she's made a good film (1992's "Death Becomes Her") and 15 years since she's made a film at all and now she's saddled with SNATCHED.
Proving she was a one-hit-wonder at the movies, Amy Schumer fails to follow up on her terrific film debut "Trainwreck" with an awkward performance as Emily, newly single and holding two tickets to an exotic vacation after her boyfriend (a hilarious turn by Randall Park) dumps her.
Visiting her cat-loving, overly protective mother Linda (Hawn) she decides to take her Mom on vacation and they are soon bound for a very third world jungle destination.
Very shortly they are kidnapped and yes, you can guess every plot twist and turn from there.
Poor Goldie does the absolute best she can in a very underwritten and cliche role and she proves she's still up for physical comedy, but the script's predictable and cliche "mother & daughter" moments feel false and unearned.
So we should ignore the bad drama and stick with the comedy, right?
On that score, credit Schumer for surrounding herself with a great cast that blows her off the screen at every turn.
Ike Barinholtz steals the movie as Emily's housebound brother, still living at home with MaMa!! MaMa!!! (he's hilarious).
Wanda Sykes and Joan Cusack are fall over funny as fellow tourists and former special opps team members who leap into action to save the kidnapped duo. Wanda delivers more punch and laughs in any one scene than Schumer does in the whole film.
Throw in Christopher Meloni as an Indiana Jones wannabe and you've got the supporting cast of your dreams.
But at the core, you have a nearly unrecognizable Goldie, so tweaked by bad plastic surgery that you spend most of the time wondering why beautiful women do this to themselves (see Annette Bening in "20th Century Women", aging gracefully, naturally and still beautiful) and Schumer trying so hard not to act that all we see is her acting.
Near the end of her film debut "Trainwreck", there's a scene where Schumer joins a cheerleading squad to win back her boyfriend and it felt false, not up to the previous hour and a half of reality that she'd served up so well.
Imagine an entire movie filled with those uncomfortable moments and you have this box office bomb.
SNATCHED abandons its funny supporting cast in the jungle and lands a D.
Comments