MARTIN AND LEWIS (2002) **1/2 [mouse type voce] How abbow dat? Uh Jerry Lewis n Dean Martin movie and neithah'ums e'en innit! bada-boomp! Musta took a genius to think up dat! Scholars, however, might, might , argue that they're more in this one than any of the ones that their true likeness actually graced. Jerry and Dean were, together, mainly funny. There are parts of this movie that are also funny, and you have to admit that they're the parts that are supposed to be funny. On the other hand, even the funny parts suffer because Jerry Lewis is funnier than Sean Hayes and Dean Martin is funnier than Jeremy Northam. But Sean's wild gestures and glances are about as close as you can expect anyone to get to the master, and Jeremy manages to communicate a great deal without saying or moving much. But Sean doesn't make you laugh out loud just by looking at him, and Jeremy doesn't impress you just by standing there. It took awhile to get much traction in my psyche, much less heart, but the story of these guys does finally get to you. Dino dressing up to file for bankruptcy. It's probably common enough knowledge for anyone who thinks about it much that being Jerry often isn't easy, but it's even more telling how difficult being Dino looks. You can make it look easy, even feel easy, but that doesn't mean it really is. I don't know if it's easy being anyone, but when John Grey isn't interjecting himself into the film with what feel like amateurish experimentation (but are too effective to really be) experiments (slo-mo for the new club scene), he presides over a film that flickers reflections of two deep and scarred souls. And that's somethin'.
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