The film industry’s equivalent of a paid vacation, The Big Bounce, is a Hawaii-sized bore. The movie lets its stars relax to the point of becoming sleep inducing and amounts to nothing more than a month-long holiday.
Director George Armitage (Grosse Pointe Blank) becomes so enthralled with Hawaii and Sara Foster in a bathing suit that the entire film begins to center around them.
Suffering from an over-abundance of sweeping landscape shots and close-ups on Sara Foster’s legs, the meandering story line never finds a focus.
That plot features Jack Ryan, played by Owen Wilson. By the time the opening credits finish rolling, he’s already on his way to getting himself fired from his construction job and landing in jail for a baseball bat assault.
After being released, Wilson meets Nancy Hayes (played by Foster), the bad-boy-loving mistress of his former boss Ray Ritchie (Gary Sinise). Foster and Wilson pal around stealing cars and breaking into houses, until she reveals her plan to scam Ray for $200,000.
Wilson is halfheartedly convinced into pulling off the heist, but never really seems thrilled or even interested with the idea.
After nearly calling off the con a number of times – to the point that it doesn’t really matter if it goes through or not, because no one cares anymore – the movie leads up to the “who’s-cheating-who?” conclusion.
Morgan Freeman, Gary Sinise and Charlie Sheen show up in roles that offer nothing but a vacation spot and a paycheck.
Owen Wilson manages to add sporadic, ad-libbed humor to an absolute dud of a script. The film is based on Elmore Leonard’s book, which can’t possibly be as bad as this movie.
Brian Mulligan can be reached at mulligan@temple.edu.
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