Outside Providence

December 10, 2004

Rated: R Runtime: 102 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

What is up with studios mis-promoting movies lately? First it was Universal trying to sell The Sixth Sense as a horror movie, now Miramax is trying to make viewers think Outside Providence is another Mary. Nope, sorry, it ain’t. However, it is a good movie in its own right and is worth seeing, especially if you are looking for a date movie.

Shawn Hatosy plays Timothy “Dildo” Dunphy, a working class high school senior who like to hang out with his friends and get high. One evening while the group is driving around stoned (!!), Tim runs into a parked police car. In the ensuing aftermath Tim’s dad pulls some strings with a friend of his and has Tim enrolled at an exclusive prep school.

Though he doesn’t know a soul there, and obviously doesn’t fit in, it doesn’t take him any time at all to be hanging with a new group of friends… and smoking pot. Ya know, I was in school in the 70’s, and I don’t remember drug use being quite this prevalent.

Anyway, he falls for the prettiest girl in school and as luck (and the transparent script) would have it, he manages to hook up with her. Gee… I hope that didn’t shock anyone.

The movie has tons of clichÃ© characters in it, from the druggie students and friends, to the sinister dorm master and the crooked dean. Do we care about any of these characters? Not really. Does it matter? Not really. Even though this movie is highly predictable, it still manages to evoke a few laughs and is really quite harmless. The humor is most certainly from the Farrelly brothers but it much less “in your face” than There’s Something About Mary.

If you have nothing else to do, you won’t be too disappointed in this movie, but it can certainly wait for a rental if you can’t make time to see it in the theater.

Posted by John | Filed Under 3 Stars, Alec Baldwin, Comedy, George Wendt, R, Sara Gilbert, Shawn Wayne Hatosy, Theatrical