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| Nothing says "New Jersey Christmas" like a family trip to the mall. |
From the moment "WWE" popped up in the opening credits, I knew this one would be a gem. A welcome departure from the standard fare, it's basically a rom-com wrapped up in the trappings of a Miami Vice episode. Oh, and it takes place during Christmas.
Francia Raisa plays Tory Bell, a demure elementary school teacher dating a well-to-do Manhattanite. She's upwardly mobile, and trying to put her seedy past behind her. Until she notices one of her students being ushered into a strange van. High-heels be damned, she's out the window, running atop a dividing wall, then plunging 20 feet onto the top of the speeding van below. Don't tell the fiancé - she comes from a Dirty Jersey family of Bounty Hunters!
The holidays are upon the young couple, and it's the season for meeting parents. Tory sets off to New Jersey, some vague plot points about a released criminal with a vendetta going after the family, or maybe the fam just needed her for one last job - I wasn't really paying that much attention. Inexplicably, when Tory dips back into bounty hunting, she needs to start dressing like a slut. Her mom's giant tattooed boobs and her dad's heavy rotation of leather vests sans-shirts provide a stream of cheap laughs for the lowest common denominator (there was a moment when embarrassed Tory begs her old man to don a shirt with sleeves, to which he replies "aint doin' it" and I was shocked to find myself legitimately laughing).
Will Greenberg, as the fish-out-of-water boyfriend (I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but these things are just so damn consistent in their missteps and foibles) is underused and given little to work with. An iPhone app features prominently; Greenberg announces, as he pops up mid-gunfight in a mobster's warehouse "Tory, I know you're in here - I used that app I showed you!" Later, it's Tory who tracks the now captured Greenberg (poor guys just isn't cut out for this lifestyle) using the app. As she busts into the room where he should be (according to his flashing beacon), she finds only his buzzing phone on an empty couch - the hired muscle, entering gun drawn, quips - "You actually thought I'd be dumb enough to let him keep his phone?! I'm insulted." I don't know why I got so hung up on this line, but I couldn't let it go.
By all the rules given to us in this universe, a hired goon would (and should!) be dumb enough to let him keep his phone. Not only that, the main characters, expert bounty hunters all, are not only planning on Will having his phone, they don't even consider an alternate possibility. I think what's so amazing is that this minion effectively punctures the bubble the rest of the movie sets up, and just for one moment I feel like I'm given access to a much more sinister criminal world, a la Breaking Bad. Will this insulted giant bodyguard / thug show his displeasure by kneecapping them both before bringing them to the boss? Will he unleash a Patrice O'neal-esque tirade while breaking fingers? Will poor Tory and Mikey Muscles (her old flame) get a few bullets in the head before they can rescue new boyfriend? Sadly, no. The realism lasts for a fleeting, glimmering moment, then back to cooky town. But thanks to this one scene, I get the greatest Christmas gift of all - an alternate version of this movie playing out in my head from scene one to ending credits, peopled with dark and desperate characters running amok with little care for human life, all set against a yuletide backdrop. I should watch Die Hard.
NSM - Non-Santa Movie
MRI - Mild Racism towards Italians
ERNJ - Extreme Racism towards New Jerseyans
TC - Tattooed Cleavage
Warmest thoughts,
- Jon Bobby Elf
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