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Broken Commandments by JOANNE LATIMER Seth Warner (Aidan Quinn) was beset by some bad luck and decided to act out his spiritual crisis by breaking all of the commandments. Sounds promising, right? Sadly, this nifty premise loses out to bad acting, a misguided script and cutesy direction. Commandments is pitched to us as a comedy. My guess is that it started out as a drama. When it turned into a failed drama, the filmmakers desperately axed the original film score, put goofy music on top and decided to use the scenes where the actors are the most incredulous. Voilà: a makeshift black comedy. Thankfully, there are only 10 commandments for Seth Warner to break. For a film that's supposed to show up the contradictions of worshipping an unfair god, Commandments is bereft of irony. All the characters are moral polar opposites. There's Rachel--played to little effect by Courtney Cox--who stands in as the beautiful sister-in-law. There's Harry (Anthony LaPaglia) her cheating husband and then there's Seth himself, sitting amorally at ground zero. Seth can't believe the string of tragedies that demolished his personal life. That's understandable--he's in shock. The problem with Seth occurs when he comes out of shock. Then we can't believe Aidan Quinn. Quinn looks surprised to find himself in the film--and he's not alone. He's an unconvincing wallower and widower. Quinn was lame in Legends of the Fall, playing the loser brother to Brad Pitt, and he doesn't improve the performance here at all. As far as Seth's vendetta with God goes, it comes off as overripe theatre.
The marriage in the movie is completely untenable. Sure, untenable marriages are commonplace, but you have to show us their complexity on screen to keep us caring. In Commandments, Rachel and Harry are in a boring situation: he's a bastard and she's an angel. Director-writer Daniel Taplitz has to come up with something better than that. And it wouldn't have hurt the film to throw in some subtle Christian references or sight gags instead of the enormous gaffe at the end involving the belly of a whale. Don't ask. Commandments opens at the Cinéma du Parc this Friday, July 19. See repertory listings for showtimes |
The Wrath of Job
Seth isn't funny. Seth has to be funny if Commandments is going to fly as a comedy. Anthony LaPaglia ends up doing double time for laughs, hamming it up as a scummy reporter on the City Hall beat. LaPaglia exceeds playing a morally bankrupt husband and it's good to see him squirm. LaPaglia is the only one who looks like he fits in the film, so it's a shame that his character is the most one-dimensional.