Luck is unpredictable.
Take this weekend, when on Friday 13th I became a US Citizen
(outstanding good luck) and then on Saturday and Sunday I saw back to back
movies starring Channing Tatum (exceptional bad luck). Ex male stripper/fashion model/dancer Mr
Tatum got his big break as a disadvantaged dancer in 'Step Up' and has coasted
along mainly in lightweight frothy movies like ‘Dear John’ and 'GI Joe’. In 2008 he was in the ensemble cast of Kimberly
Pierce’s brilliant ‘Stop Loss’ about soldiers returning from Iraq, and for one
brief moment it looked like this pretty all-American boy could actually act. I know now that was his one shining
moment.
In this movie he is cast as a distraught husband who’s
wife suffers a brain injury from a car crash leaving her with partial
amnesia. She can remember her whole life up to the time she met him, and so he spends the entire 90 minutes wooing
her back all over again. That’s the full
gist of the sticky saccharine coated plot that is loosely based on a real life story, and naturally as
this is Hollywood it predictably has a happy ending.
The wife is played by Rachel McAdams who is given
little to get her teeth into apart from having to look stunningly beautiful (and
remarkablely unscarred) despite this fierce accident and her ‘medical condition’
which is never explained. The only actor
who redeems herself in a wee 5 minute speech is Jessica Lange playing the
mother who explains why she stayed in her marriage after she caught her
philandering husband out.
Two lessons to learn from this experience. Firstly
always keep you seat belt on in the car even if you are about to make out with
a hot man, and secondly skip all movies where hot looking men cannot do anymore
beyond just making out without sending you to sleep.
★★
★★
