WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD (2002) *1/2 Why would anyone want to make a movie about a bunch of dumb idiots who aren't good at their work, lie to each other and everyone else, and have no redeeming qualities other than their accurate belief that they are, in their distorted state (anti-Rousseau, anti-Kierkegaard, low-rent Enron), entirely unworthy of affection. I mean, it wouldn't work as a sitcom on insurance lawyers-you'd be properly laughed out of Hollywood for even raising the possibility-so why would anyone think that if the subjects are petty crooks it might be funny? It's not. These characters are too dumb to even distort much. They're more projectiles of an inferior launching system, without radar, moral or otherwise, or landing gear. The big question is why anyone would even write about them, and the bitterness of the (allegedly comedic) script suggests that someone got ripped off somewhere along the line, or dumped. Ok, that's even better. So now we're supposed to be interested in the ramblings of someone who got taken in by clowns like this? I give up. Sam Rockwell and Patricia Clarkson aren't without (very) brief moments of guttural charm, but even William H. Macy can't bring this sort of lobotomized morally diversified and destroyed Frankenstein creature to life. I guess the heavily tattooed George Clooney must be somebody's idea of a dreamboat, but again, I'm not interested in the aesthetics of insurance lawyers or trailer park fences. Clooney couldn't have saved it by staying in the scenes longer anyway, he just would have continued to blend in.
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