June 18, 2012

What About Bob?



What About Bob?, 1991. A man with crippling neuroses stalks and harasses his psychiatrist.

Directed by Frank Oz. Written by Tom Schulman; story by Alvin Sargent & Laura Ziskin. Starring Bill Murray & Richard Dreyfuss.

Concept: 0/4 (Terrible). Might have been an okay premise for a thriller, but a comedy? No.
Story: 3/4 (Good)
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 4/4 (Great)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 1/4 (Bad)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). This movie should have been an awkward, uncomfortable train wreck, but instead it had me grinning through the entire thing. Part of that's Oz's timing, and of course Murray's ability to make a mediocre script funny, but mostly - unexpectedly - it comes down to Richard Dreyfuss. He hits the perfect balance of believable and cartoonish. There's just the tiniest ounce of sympathy with his character, so that you can appreciate how horrible the situation is without his pain ever being anything but funny.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.4/4 (Okay)

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