Good ol' fella
INFO
Randy and the Mob
3 stars. Directed by Ray McKinnon. Stars Ray McKinnon, Walton Goggins. Rated PG. Opens Sept. 21. At area theaters.
Ray McKinnon and his filmmaking partners prove you can take the actors out of the South without taking the South out of the actors. That's not always the case when the South's native sons and daughters go Hollywood. Reese Witherspoon and Julia Roberts have deep Southern roots, but trafficked in grating Dixie caricatures in Sweet Home Alabama and Steel Magnolias, respectively.
McKinnon, a character actor originally from Adel, Ga., and his acting/producing teammates Lisa Blount and Walton Goggins have a deep appreciation for the South's drawling idiosyncrasies without distorting them. McKinnon's Oscar-winning 2001 short film "The Accountant," a dark comedy worthy of Flannery O'Connor, proved to be one of the best depictions of the South ever filmed, and his first feature film, the 2004 dark drama Chrystal, showed similar insight into the region's complex realities.
McKinnon lightens up considerably with Randy and the Mob, a screwball Southern comedy that plays for more modest stakes and lacks the same punch as the prior films. The film proves just laid-back enough to play against some of its over-the-top oddball plot twists, and comes across a little like Del Shores' campy cult hit Sordid Lives – brought down to a calmer, more realistic level, as if filmed by Errol Morris in his deadpan documentary Vernon, Florida phase.
Small-town would-be wheeler-dealer Randy Pearson (McKinnon) struggles to stay ahead of his debts to the IRS, organized crime and seemingly everyone else he knows, while remaining too proud to ask his gay twin brother Cecil (also McKinnon) for help. The mobsters send one of their own to take over Randy's depleted finances, but he's no Sopranos-esque enforcer. Instead, Tino Armani (Goggins), turns out to be an idiot savant comparable to Billy Bob Thornton's Carl Childers in Sling Blade.
Tino seems borderline autistic in conversation, but he proves to be perceptive, sensitive and cultured. In the film's most amusing, appealing scenes, Tino gradually wins over Randy's family and neighbors by teaching soccer, Italian cooking and even clogging. Tino not only makes a hit by serving salmon at Randy's failing barbecue restaurant, he uses the smoke as a sauna.
In a way, Tino espouses the evolving values of the New South, just as Randy resists them and Cecil embodies them. Happily married to another man, Cecil, an antiques dealer, fits comfortably in his small-town niche. Randy instead clings to good ol' boy ideals, such as pushing his son into football over soccer. Ironically, Randy doesn't wear the Southern alpha-male attitude very well, and McKinnon puts a little desperation in his attempt to seem like one of the guys. By contrast, Burt Reynolds exudes Southern male entitlement in a funny scene as Randy's lordly business rival. Casting himself as both twins may be a stunt, but McKinnon delivers a pair of witty, sensitive performances that never become cartoonish.
Randy and the Mob's attempts at broader slapstick, such as the drawn-out brawls and shoot-outs at the end, or Randy's tumble down an endless hill at the dump, feel more like forced bids for laughter. It's also a letdown that a film so attuned to Southern stereotypes would rely on such familiar Italian gangsters, although Paul Ben-Victor shows some keen comic timing. Plus, Tino ultimately seems like too much a blank slate. Goggins' unflappable demeanor is hilarious, but it's hard to make sense of the character's choices, as if the film withholds too much from the role in the name of maintaining its mystery.
Local audiences will enjoy spotting such area stage actors as Jill Jane Clements, David Milford and Carol Mitchell-Leon. McKinnon's script gets off some amusing one-liners. Randy's wife (Lisa Blount, McKinnon's off-screen spouse), a baton and tap teacher, bemoans loss of livelihood after being diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome. When Randy suggests that she simply twirl the batons in front of her, where she can see them, she says "Not tunnel vision, carpal tunnel!"
For his part, McKinnon never views the South with tunnel vision. The filmmaker finds the humor in the region's quirks and contradictions and is big-hearted enough to laugh with it, not at it.
COMMENTS
RE: Good ol' fella
Posted by Joe on 09.25.07 @ 10:01 AM
This is the sleeper comedy of the year! Very well written depicting the south.Great storyline, quirky characters, classic one liners. Ray Mckinnon, Lisa Blount, and Walton Goggins really captures the south and human nature!
RE: Good ol' fella
Posted by Tom on 09.21.07 @ 02:35 PM
I saw a sneak preview of this film. It was laugh-out-loud hilarious. I recommend it.