Rumor has it that one critic of the original, 1969 version of The Big Bounce called the film a "rancid piece of trash," and personally, I think any movie that rouses feelings strong enough to go with such a vehement accolade is, in some sense, a success. This year's re-make of the film is not nearly as stirring, nor as bad as the press would suggest. The real problem is that the whole movie is one big "so what". The acting is almost totally unremarkable, the script is poorly adapted, and the action is mind-numbingly dull.
Our story takes place in Hawaii (or more specifically, Oahu) and focuses on Owen Wilson as Jack Ryan, the sunburnt journeyman, surfer dude, and small-time crook who lands a job doing caretaking work at a bungalow complex owned by the local district judge, Walter Crewes (Morgan Freeman). Jack begins a cute little Owen Wilson-inflected romance with blonde, leggy Nancy (played blandly and ineloquently by supermodel Sara Foster), who happens to be the mistress of real estate developer and rival of Crewes, Ray Ritchie (Gary Sinise).
Nancy seduces Jack into a relationship that finds him showing her the ropes of petty thievery and B&R while she cock-teases him into joining her scheme to rob Ritchie of several hundred thousand dollars that he is hiding at his hunting lodge. Things get slightly hotter (but just slightly) and mildly funny (but just mildly) as alliances shift and their plan falls apart.
The Big Bounce just reeks of the fact that it is based on an Elmore Leonard novel. For those familiar with his work (Out of Sight, Jackie Brown, Get Shorty) the characters will also be familiar--a fast-talking, but sort of pathetic con-man, a corrupt district judge who fits in perfectly with the locals, a sexy temptress who is only in it for the money--they're all the usual archetypes in Leonard's pretensious micro-world of "this is what crime is really like" vice. They're quick, they're cool, they're sexy, they're interesting. These are exactly the type of characters that you want to have onscreen.
But even without having read the book, it's clear that screenwriter Sebastian Gutierrez had no plan and no clue in their adaptation. Ray Ritchie, for example, was a role that Sinise could have gotten major mileage out of, but he only appears in two or three scenes. He's the target of the hit, but unlike one of his Hollywood counterparts, Andy Garcia as Terry Benedict in Stephen Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven, his character is left completely undeveloped. It's nearly impossible to sympathize with the heisters because we have no idea why they have chosen their victim.
Owen Wilson, on the other hand, is simply in the wrong role. For an actor whose parts tend to be tailor-made for his sensitive, befuddled personality, it would seem incredibly difficult to mis-cast him. But Jack Ryan is very much the confident, smooth, heartless crook that Wilson is not.
Where Wilson has made a career out of lampooning the movie star image in his performances, he is called upon in The Big Bounce to adopt that very persona.
His counterpart Sara Foster is equally inept, if only because of the poor quality of both her lines and meek facilities as an actress. She looks good half-naked, but can't play cute to save her life. Morgan Freeman is brilliant as usual (although also stuck in a dead-end, underdeveloped role), and Sinise and Charlie Sheen leave little impression in their miniscule roles. The script is a tutorial in how a book full of character description and chemistry can be boiled down to fluff in less than two hours.
As far as the cast goes, the only treat is a cameo by Willie Nelson as a grizzled local who plays dominoes with Judge Crewes.
Visually, with its lush, wide-angle shots of the Hawaiian coast at dusk and exciting surfing footage, The Big Bounce is impressive. But perhaps director George Armitage should have spent a bit more time tweaking his material. Or maybe he could have added a sex scene. Or something exciting. Anything! Maybe the movie could have stood to be a little more rancid, a little more trashy. Then at least it would be memorable.
