Bowfinger

December 11, 2004

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 97 min Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

DVD Quick Take

This is a pretty good DVD containing a pretty mediocre movie. It is widescreen enhanced with no noticable flaws in the video reproduction. You also get not only Dolby Digital on this one but DTS as well. However, I’m still trying to figure out why. This is a comedy and as such it’s mostly dialog. The music and what little action is in the movie does sound great though.

In addition to the movie you get a good selection of extras including some outtakes and deleted scenes. The deleted scenes are nothing special and if you listen to the director’s commentary Frank Oz will tell you why they were cut out. As you would expect with Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin who both love to ad lib scenes there are some good outtakes but nothing that really put me in the floor.

But it’s still good to see a movie not only put out a decent reproduction on DVD, but actually embrace the format and utilize some of the features it can provide with the extras, DTS, etc. If you’re a big time Eddie Murphy or Steve Martin fan, you might want to buy this DVD, but for most of us I would recommend it only as a rental.

Movies For Guys’ Original Review of the Theatrical Release

I really wanted this movie to be better than it was. Being a big fan of both Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy, it pains me to only give Bowfinger 3 stars, but that’s all it deserves.

The premise of the movie is great. Steve Martin plays Bobby Bowfinger, a movie director/producer who thinks he has a great script and only needs someone to help finance the movie. He finds that person in Jerry Renfro (Robert Downey Jr.), but he will only come on board if Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy) is the star.

Bobby approaches Kit but is dismissed in short order. Not being one to give up he comes up with the brilliant premise for this movie within a movie… Kit will be the star, but he won’t know it! Bobby will just have his actors come up to Kit in public places and say their lines… instant hit movie!

Of course, Bobby doesn’t have any backing money for this project as Kit doesn’t know he’s in the movie so he finances it himself with a couple thousand dollars. The cost saving measures he takes to get by result in one of the more amusing scenes in the movie… where he hires his help.

Turns out that Kit is of the insanely paranoid type, and doesn’t deal very well with “strange white people” coming up to him and saying things he doesn’t understand. These scenes are great in the film.. Eddie Murphy does a really good job of looking like a bewildered star.

In his second role in the film, Eddie Murphy plays Jiff, a guy who just enjoys running errands but has an uncanny resemblance to Kit Ramsey. Bobby hires Jiff to play the stand in for Kit for all the close up scenes. The funniest part of the entire movie is the part where Jiff has to cross the L.A. Freeway.

While I didn’t find this movie to be a laugh-out-loud comedy, and it did drag on in parts, its not all bad. If you are looking for an amusing movie to take a date too, this is a great choice. Otherwise, you might want to wait for the DVD.

Posted by John | Filed Under 2 Stars, Christine Baranski, Comedy, DVD, Eddie Murphy, Heather Graham, PG-13, Steve Martin, Terence Stamp